Trust
by nonyvole
Summary: The third time Clint Barton shaved his head, he blamed Stark. It was probably a good thing that by then, Clint trusted his teammates...
1. Chapter 1

Avengers isn't mine. Bringing some of the comic-verse into the movie-verse, namely Hawkeye being deaf. Spoilers only if you squint, no romance. Not particularly nice to everybody at times.

* * *

The first time he shaved his head, it wasn't by choice. Some of the other kids at the orphanage took umbrage to something his first week there – he still didn't know what – and sat on him and chopped his hair. The adults clucked over it all, but dragged him off to the barber who cut it so short that he looked bald for nearly a month.

The second time he shaved his head, it was for a mission. People asked fewer questions of a bald man than one that had a large supply of hair dye, or visible roots, and they were traveling light. Lucky Natasha, who had the right color hair, and even if she hadn't, her entire being was designed around fitting in, so it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

The third time Clint Barton shaved his head, though, he blamed Stark.

More than that, he blamed Stark and his creativity.

* * *

"Stark has something for you," Natasha muttered, dropping down into the chair next to Clint's at the weekly meeting. "Pepper says that he told her that whatever it is non-lethal, but there have been several rather large explosions from his workroom recently, but Pepper was not sure just what he was working on at that point in time, since he's also been working on a new suit. Be warned."

"Huh." Clint grunted, shifting to face her. "Thanks. Good or bad, you think?"

Watching Natasha shrug, Clint went back to sharpening a knife, the repetitive activity helping him to relax prior to what was sure to be another long, annoying meeting. They were always annoying, because while they all could and had worked together, there were too many conflicting personalities to prevent arguments from breaking out, usually between Stark and Rogers, and long because of those petty squabbles. He and Natasha tried to stay out of them, passing notes back and forth like kids did in school, but since the arguments were becoming repetitive, so were the notes. Part of Clint's mind wondered just why these meetings were needed; it would be much easier to simply send around a note each week that said "nothing new from Loki, HYDRA, or whoever else Tony Stark has annoyed recently," and save these meetings for actual emergencies, but what the others wanted, the others got.

He heard the door open again, and casually held the knife up, looking at it and running a finger lightly along one side, as a body sat down on his other side. Banner. Good. As long as he stayed...human, Clint liked the man to the point where he could actually consider _liking _anybody else in the Avenger's Initiative other than Natasha, simply because the man left him the hell alone. The rest of the time, Clint kept at least one tranquilizer-loaded arrow close at hand. Clint didn't like to think about the rest; Steve seemed to feel that since he was an Army captain, and the titular head of the Avengers, and Clint and Natasha weren't, he had the right to poke his nose in where it really didn't belong. The two SHIELD operatives didn't only have responsibilities to the Avengers, but also other roles in SHIELD, some of which they knew Steve wasn't cleared for – but the super-soldier either didn't understand or didn't care. Plus, Clint liked his privacy, and when he had time to himself, he didn't want to be dragged off to be sociable. Tony was the type of person that Clint had grown up hating and envying in equal amounts, and while Clint knew that his feelings were irrational, he still hadn't seen anything to change his mind. Thor was another one in the same category as Banner, but he was around rather infrequently, so Clint didn't think about the demi-god much.

As Dr. Banner sat down, he whispered "did she warn you? About the arrows?"

"Yeah, but she didn't tell me that. Thanks." Clint sighed, putting away his whetstone and knife. Sure, he respected Tony Stark - he respected all of these guys - but there were times that he wished that he could go back to a time when it was just him and Natasha working together, with Coulson acting as their handler or boss or whatever they wanted to call him that day – they had once gone an entire week-long mission calling him "mother hen," and only stopped when he threatened to rig their showers, would they rather go around bright pink or purple for a while? There were a lot fewer of these meetings, for one, meetings that cut into time that Clint had very carefully mapped out.

After all, it wasn't like he had superpowers. "The Greatest Marksman in the World" title came through hours and hours of practice, and _stayed _because of more practice.

The door opened a third time, and Clint mentally braced himself for whoever walked in next. "Agent Barton!" Stark. Great. "Glad I caught you!"

"It wasn't like you were going to miss having a chance to speak to him," Natasha observed sardonically, leaning back in her chair. "After all, it isn't like these meetings aren't mandatory."

The wave of self-confidence that Tony Stark extruded swept over the three already at the table as he took a seat at one end, waving off Natasha's comments. Leaning forward, he propped his elbows on the table and stared at Clint. "Yeah, sure, but I wasn't sure if he'd be all here today. So look, Clint, I was thinking that you've got a pretty good arsenal that you're carrying around and all, but you don't have anything not, well, harmful for your average human, right?" Leaning back, Tony put his feet up on the table. "So I made you some. Well, I made the electronic heads, but the folks here turned them into arrows."

Clint had to choke back laughter at Natasha's whispered "now I really hope that the reason Pepper's plans for the day were ruined was because he was playing with something personal, because if he's suggesting that you use a noise emitter that likes to blow up then I will have words with him."

"So I'll have Pepper or Happy drop 'em off for you later, and you can give them a try. They use a sonic emitter, creating just enough sound at a frequency that most humans find disturbing. The thought was that, you know, drop a couple to help clear out the civilians, maybe also help distract whoever we're fighting."

Clint hummed noncommittally. "What about us? Or were you thinking more of herding the bad guys?"

"True, clearing out civilians would probably be better. So, you'll give them a try?"

Clint could only shrug. "Sure. What's the worst that could happen?"

* * *

As he ran up a fire escape, Clint's fingers ghosted over the arrows in his quiver. He wasn't completely sure if the new sonic arrows were really worth it, but orders were orders. Loki had – apparently – escaped whatever punishment he'd been undergoing, and Thor had shown up just as the first explosions went off. He didn't think that Loki was putting his full energy behind this attempt; compared to the first time, this was like a walk in the park. Pulling himself over the ledge of the roof, Clint pulled an arrow out and peered over the edge, where Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man were busy swatting at what looked like knee-high ants. "Eyes in the sky up, no sign of anything but those...things."

Taking a glance up and down the street, he continued, "we need some ant spray." He swiftly drew his bowstring back, stood, and fired at what he'd swear was an oversized bumblebee. "Correction, we need some fly paper. Watch the air." A small part of him was glad that Natasha had been sent on some undercover thing in South America – she _hated_ bugs, and there was only so much cursing in a multitude of languages that Clint could take before he got bored.

A crunch of gravel behind him had the marksman spinning around. "Need some help up here!" he barked into the comm as he rapidly fired arrows at the rather large robotic something that was supposedly in charge, aiming at what he had been told was its weak spot. He frowned as it caught them all, eyed the curiously, and then threw them back towards Clint, along with a blast of energy. Swiftly calculating trajectories, Clint did the only thing possible, spinning around and dropping to one knee, covering the back of his head and neck with his hands.

The energy blast and an arrow hit his quiver straight on. The resulting explosion threw him off the roof, bleeding. Tony had been looking up when Clint called for assistance; the high-pitched screams of sonic arrows being blown up had him flying up to catch the unconscious archer. Landing next to a SHIELD van, Tony lay Clint down on a stretcher. "If you die, Hawkeye, your girl will kill all of us."


	2. Chapter 2

Waking up was hard enough some mornings, waking up after being knocked out by something that he had been told was safe was the last thing that Clint wanted to do. "Sure," he muttered. "They're stable, he said. They just emit a little bit of noise, he said."

Sudden touches on his shoulders - both shoulders - made him jump, opening his eyes. White. Boring. Hospital. Natasha on one side, Stark on the other, Stark's feet on the bed. Slight tugging and a dull ache in his wrist suggested that he had been there long enough to get an IV. He could feel stickers on his chest from the monitor, but the beeping that was normally present was missing. Reaching up, he tugged off the cannula that was blowing oxygen up his nose; it felt like his own personal wind tunnel. "The hell?" Even his own voice sounded weird to him, almost like it did when he was little and had that ear infection and went around with cotton in his ears. Flat. Muffled. Clint struggled to sit up, Natasha helping him with one hand on his back, followed by her of them raising the head of the bed so that he could lean back. "Tasha. What happened."

Clint watched as her lips moved, but was unable to hear anything. Shaking his head, he repeated, "What happened. Natasha, I can't hear you. Speak up." Raising his hands to his head, he felt for the bandages that were sure to be there, covering his ears. Stupid, that the medical staff had bandaged him up like they did, but he was awake now, didn't see any blood, and didn't even hurt as much as he had in the past, when he'd woken up here after being knocked out on a mission. As his hands hit bare skin, Natasha went pale, and he started to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Tasha?"

A small notebook and a pen were tossed onto the bed, making Clint jump slightly. He hadn't forgotten about Stark, just...put the other man out of his mind. He saw Natasha focus on Stark, then say something - thank you? Sure looked like the other times that she had said those two words. Picking up the objects, she glanced at the page on top, and then held it out to Clint.

"QUIVER HIT. ARROWS EXPLODED." was written on there in block print. "BIG BANG, LOUD SOUNDS." Clint narrowed his eyes, and stared at Stark. "Are you saying that I'm deaf?" Stark just nodded, looking somber. "For how long?" A shrug. Turning, Clint repeated his question to Natasha. "How long?"

She shook her head. "No way to tell until you woke up," she wrote. "Looking online, maybe bad."

"Well, _fuck_."

Slumping back in the bed, Clint stared at Natasha, Tony moving his feet off the bed and sitting forward in his chair. Rolling her eyes slightly, Natasha stared at the billionaire and told him something. Not being able to hear her – or Tony's reply – only contributed to the numb feeling that was slowly creeping over Clint.

As Tony stood up, Natasha focused her attention on the notepad. "Getting Doctor," Clint read. "No hiding."

"Would I do that?" Clint looked at Natasha innocently, only to jump, heart pounding, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Suppressing his initial reaction – Natasha was calm, he was in a SHIELD-secured medical facility, don't panic, he turned and saw the doctor standing over him, stethoscope in hand, eyebrow raised. Forcing an embarrassed grin onto his face, Clint handed the notepad to the doctor. "Stark's fault, for now."

"And I should know better than to sneak up on an agent, especially one who can't hear," the doctor wrote. "so…"

When the doctor couldn't find anything else immediately wrong, he wrote out instructions for Clint to take it easy for a few days, not skip the pain pills, and return in two days to meet with a specialist for more testing. Walking down the hallway towards his quarters – Clint felt like he hadn't had a shower for _weeks_ – was less stressful. Unless there was something happening, the hallways on this level had a strange disconnect and were quiet, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A little hazy, thanks to the painkillers, but the lack of sound didn't disturb the marksman. Natasha walked next to him, wrapped up in her own thoughts.

That is, until Clint felt a tap on his shoulder. Instinct took over, and he found himself kneeling on Steve Roger's chest, knife to his throat. Sudden realization of _what _had just happened, and to _who_, had Clint springing backwards, holding out a hand to help the other man up.

"Sorry," Clint said, as he slid the knife back into its sheath. "Little jumpy."

Steve nodded as he straightened his clothes. He said something, a small crease forming between his eyebrows as he frowned, looking concerned. When he stopped, Natasha stepped up and the two had a short conversation. Clint had a feeling that until he could hear again that he would very quickly become tired of these situations. But, he noticed a couple other employees further down the hall, attempting to discreetly eavesdrop, and had a suspicion that his worries would become moot before too long; between Tony, Steve, and those two the new state of affairs would become well-known before too long.

With a small grin, and a small salute, Steve walked off. Natasha turned to Clint, and with a quirk of her eyebrow, the two continued on.

They ended up in Natasha's quarters, and were watching some ballet that Natasha had taped – well, Natasha was critiquing the ballerinas and their technique, Clint was just enjoying watching dancing girls – when she paused the film, heading to her door. Opening it, Tony sauntered in, tossing a tablet computer at Clint before turning around and heading back out. Looking down, Clint read to Natasha "Yours for as long as you need it."

Natasha sat back down on the bed, restarting the ballet. Clint watched the screen as she typed "he is feeling guilty. Let him. Now shut up. Can you believe how sloppy she is?"


	3. Chapter 3

Slightly sappy, but yes, grown men can and will cry.

* * *

That night, Clint lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Turning out the light, he rolled over and closed his eyes, trying to get to sleep.

Sleep, however, was not coming, as panic started to creep up, at the complete loss of any knowledge about his environment. Consciously, he knew that where he was sleeping was one of the safest places possible, but his subconscious was screaming out all the "what-ifs" that could result in disaster. Clint ended up perching on top of his wardrobe with the lights on, staring at nothing all night long. The pattern repeated over the next few nights, leaving him feeling fuzzy and off during the day. The fourth night Natasha didn't leave to return to her own quarters, and with a jerk of her head climbed into his bed, wrapping herself up in a sheet. Clint's sigh of relief didn't go unnoticed, and wrapping one arm around his partner, Clint lay down and slept for a full eight hours.

Clint had never been more grateful for Natasha, who really only left his side when he was with the doctors. They had worked out abbreviations for some of the more common things that they talked about that couldn't be communicated through their usual non-auditory methods, so while he felt disconnected from the world around him, he didn't feel like it was complete sensory deprivation. More importantly, to Clint's mind, she was there when he started to finally get upset when the doctors all finally agreed – 80% hearing loss, maybe even more but we aren't sure if you're telling us everything. Some may come back, don't hold your breath, come see us if you start getting dizzy, notice any changes, or get any ringing in your ears. Here is some literature on hearing aids, let us know your choice, yearly reassessments. Feel free to start exercising again, you just aren't mission-capable until you get those hearing aids so have fun on desk duty.

"Hearing aids? Why can't they just fix this! I can't go around with hearing aids, who goes around with hearing aids in combat!" Clint would be the first to admit that he still had some long-standing prejudices, usually associated with his time either in the orphanage or while he was traveling with the circus. His memories of kids who were wearing hearing aids were of small, pale children who hung at the fringes of the group, only playing when the game was calm and didn't involve lots of running or pushing. While he didn't exactly _like_the team games, he still liked to run. The memories that he had of seeing hearing aids – clunky devices that wrapped around the ear – suggested to him that he'd be leaving the field and ending up with a desk job. Or worse, out on the streets. Slumping down on the side of his bed, he dropped his head into his hands.

Natasha was just _there_, like she had been for the past hellish week. Sitting on the bed next to him, she wrapped her arms around him and just held him. Tucking his head against her chest, she hummed a low tune and rocked him back and forth as he finally let go of the tenuous hold he'd been keeping. It was just too, too much, and he _needed_ Natasha like he needed _air_ but he _missed_ Coulson even now and if he admitted it to _anybody_ then he'd eat his socks because Natasha was truly his better half but Coulson was always the one that just knew what to say to get them all up and going and he had _helped _them dammit and now he was completely gone. A remote part of Clint's mind pointed out that this was really the first time that he'd had a chance to truly grieve about Coulson's death – after they had stopped Loki the first time he had been kept consistently busy – but Clint ignored it in the face of his overwhelming misery. Once his crying slowed down, she didn't stop her humming, or her movements, as she handed him a tissue. Clint was content to just stay there, eyes closed, feeling the vibrations rumbling through his head, until he felt a drop of water on the side of his face. "Tasha, you okay?"

Suddenly, it was his turn to hold his crying partner as she sobbed, leaning against his chest, handing her tissues. "Shhh, it's okay, it's okay. It'll be okay, we'll figure something out, c'mon Tasha, it'll be okay. This is SHIELD. They've got stuff here that nobody else does." They ended up leaning against each other, exhausted, staring at the small pile of papers on the desk. "Okay," Clint said, taking a deep breath, "Let's see how bad it'll be, and if they've scheduled any sign language refreshers for us."

"Music. Need music." Natasha quickly typed and held up on the tablet. "Wait one."

Watching his partner crouch down in front of his stereo system, Clint wondered if he should just give it to her. It wasn't like he'd be getting much use out of it anymore...shaking his head, he leaned back against the wall, papers in hand, trying to push away the panic that was hovering right at the edges of his mind. Options. Right. Be positive. Stranger things had happened. He'd learn to sleep on his own again, right?

A couple hours later, the two were grinning at each other. "C'mon. This calls for going out. 15 minutes?" As Natasha nodded, Clint stood up and gathered up the papers and tossed them onto his desk. "These can wait until tomorrow." A tap on his shoulder had him turning around, eyes automatically going to the tablet and the question written there. "Halfway nice food, I think, maybe even some dancing?" Watching Natasha nod enthusiastically, Clint felt a tightness in his chest that he hadn't even realized was there relax slightly. Life wouldn't go back to how it had been, exactly, but they'd be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

Moving on...

* * *

Getting his hearing back was call for another celebration (although this one didn't require police intervention; there were some people that just wouldn't take no for an answer, and Natasha had had to get creative), since it meant that he, well, could _hear_, and it got him one step closer to leaving desk duty, although desk duty at SHIELD was not exactly for the faint-of-heart. (Last count: desire to use gun an average of three times a day, twenty-five threatening e-mails sent, four bribe offers received. And that was just from working with the security guards.) Natasha kept him informed about the meetings, usually through highly sarcastic notes about which Stark-Rogers argument was happening, who won it (current score: Stark 50, Rogers 49, everybody else 94) There were some changes that had to be made, like getting rid of his cheap little alarm clock and purchasing one that would shake his bed – which took getting used to; there was always a moment of panic when it first went off – and having to deal with a bunch of people crawling over his place to change things like the fire alarm and give him a doorbell that would flash a light, but Clint took them all with relatively good humor and simply went to the gym or the range to work out his frustrations with the turn his life had taken.

"Agent Barton!" Stark. The last time that he had sounded that cheerful landed Clint in this situation.

"Stark. No." "Tony, really?" Voices came from both sides. Obviously Banner had been the recipient of some of Stark's ideas in the past. Clint just smirked, staring down at the small controller that he was still learning his way around. The small device offered an extra microphone, and also could change the sensitivity of his hearing aids themselves. He could simply turn it down until the meeting started...

"Wait wait wait. This is a good idea!"

Clint just spun his chair slightly, staring straight at Tony. "I'll listen. Doesn't mean I'll agree."

"Well, I just came up with the idea...but anyways. Look. These things of yours don't work too well with our communicators, right?"

"Wrong on that one, Mr. Stark. They work just fine." Clint shook himself lightly, mentally preparing to be the other half of one of the debates with Tony Stark that were becoming rather well known.

"What about for long-term situations?"

"They'll give me ones that I can wear long-term and don't have to worry about taking out." Don't react, just be calm, and treat Tony as if he were a little kid...that was how Pepper did it, right? Damn, Stark looked like a kicked puppy. Natasha would know how Pepper did it, he'd ask later.

"See, I was thinking that you could get something implanted that could link into the communication system, so you wouldn't even have to worry." Tony smirked slightly. "Wouldn't even be a risk of getting captured and having one of your senses taken away."

"Your information is off a bit, Tony." Natasha. Idly, Clint played with the volume controls, enjoying how he could make her louder and softer at will, until she reached over and poked his arm. "The options out there still have disadvantages. What Clint decided on was deemed to be the most appropriate for any situation that he may come across."

"By who? Because there are certainly situations out there that-"

"By the _doctors_, Mr. Stark, as well as me and Natasha. Implants were some of the first things that we crossed off our list. And just why are we having this conversation?" Stay calm. Maybe he should get an iPod. Be another gadget to carry around, but he did like music...

A file folder was thumped down in front of Clint. "Just, take a look Barton. I did my own research, and you do have to admit that my level of genus is a bit higher than your average person."

Curiosity getting the better of him, Clint shifted his chair that he'd be closer to Natasha, and opened the folder so that the two of them could look at it. It was obvious that Tony had done his homework on the current available options, and had come to the same conclusions that he and Natasha had, that they could really only make the most of a bad situation. Flipping to the next page, he was presented with a schematic of...something. The rest of the papers were similarly indecipherable. Looking at Natasha, he found a look of "I don't get it, either," on her face. "Explain? Please? And I thought you were above using paper." He'd tried, in the past, to understand Tony's notes, but the man wrote in some sort of code and nothing was ever really drawn out in a logical manner. Or else it was just his handwriting.

"So, this is the basics of any implanted hearing device, connects directly to your cochlear nerve. Only problem is a microphone, right? And yeah, what you've got works, but I think that it really could be made better for while you're in a combat situation or someplace where you have to be Hawkeye the super-archer, not Clint Barton, mild-mannered whatever you are. So, since I figure that we're stuck with you,"

"Thanks, I think."

"And you're stuck with us, this part is a small radio receiver that can be programmed to our communications frequencies. You won't even need a separate microphone and transmitter; it's all in this."

"So that covers communications, Tony. Man needs to hear, though." Banner had also shifted closer, and was paging through the schematics.

"Page 5, Dr. Banner. It can just amplify the sounds that he picks up. Plus, a small in-ear microphone."

"So why not just use this at all times? After all, Agent Barton's difficulties might impact the entire team." Agent Hill had entered the room without any of them noticing, followed closely by Steve Rogers.

"Easy. They're small enough to be unnoticeable, but they're not the most comfortable. Can't beat the current market for comfort yet."

"Anybody else want to get involved with things that _aren't their business_?" Clint muttered to himself. Next to him, Natasha laughed lightly. "I'll think about it."

"Do."


	5. Chapter 5

Tony's pretty darn smart sometimes.

* * *

Clint liked to listen to the sounds of his bow and arrows while he was on the range. He loved the feel of the string between his fingers, the strain on his muscles, the sight of an arrow speeding downrange. Not nearly as fast as a bullet, no, but it brought him back to a time where life wasn't simpler, exactly - his early life and years in the circus could never be called simple - but a different kind of stress than what he had now. Less life and death for the rest of the world, just wondering what would be on the table for dinner that night, if there'd be enough to go around, where to sleep, when the cops would come knocking, and if the latest bearded woman was sleeping with the ringmaster yet. Putting his bow down, he wasn't surprised to turn around and see Tony leaning against the wall – after the way that the meeting had started yesterday, he was halfway expecting the man to show up sometime; Clint just had hoped that it would been when there was an hour or two free.

"Hey, Barton." Tony wandered closer, picking up Clint's bow. "Not bad. Pretty light. And if you call me Mr. Stark again I'll have to rescind my offer, so pack up your stuff and lets go."

"I'll pass, thanks."

"You know, Natasha told me that you'd say that. So, let me rephrase myself. Put your gear away and come with me, Natasha is waiting downstairs, she'll vouch for me."

"Why didn't she come and get me, then? Or text me? It isn't like we don't have cell phones." Digging into his pocket, Clint couldn't find his phone. "Which I don't have. Am I allowed to go and get it?"

"She did, no you aren't, and I asked her to let me come up here when she was about to drag you out by your ear because you didn't respond." Walking to the door, Tony held it open. "Well?"

Rolling his eyes, Clint quickly packed up, returning his weapons to the armory and slinging his gym bag over his shoulder. Heading towards the stairs, Tony kept pace. "Okay, where are we going, because I did have other plans."

"They'll hold." Tony stopped halfway down the stairs, turning to face Clint. Leaning against the wall, he continued, "I owe you an apology. A couple of them, actually. First, for coming up with the idea for those arrows because I quite honestly did not realize that being that close to everything else in your arsenal when it went would produce that much damage, and secondly for pushing in like I did yesterday. If you're happy with what you've got, then don't mind me. I haven't been sleeping much recently, and felt like I needed to do something."

Crossing his arms, Clint stared at the other man. "Don't bother apologizing for an idea; it wasn't like you forced me to carry those things around. And who knows, I may have had something even worse in there when it got hit. As for pushing in...it's just what you do. If it starts making people upset, they'll tell you or they'll tell Pepper and she will deal with you. But I've essentially lost one of my senses, and I'm not fully cleared until I'm used to these," Clint pointed at his ear, "so I'd say yeah, I'm a little upset."

Tony didn't reply, instead pulling out his cell phone and glancing at the screen. "Natasha is wondering if you've killed me yet. Let's go, Stark luxuries wait for no billionaire. Or Robin Hood. And before continuing this discussion I need to be someplace other than standing in a stairwell, preferably holding something older than I am."

"Don't think that the Captain would go for that," Clint muttered. Tony's laughter simply echoed through the stairwell.

Tony hadn't lied – Natasha was waiting out by the curb, leaning against a limo. What he hadn't mentioned was that Steve, Thor, and Dr. Banner were also waiting, and only years of working with Natasha allowed Clint to see her annoyance. When she transferred her glare from random people walking by to him, Clint ignored the others. "Sorry?" he muttered, speaking quietly in Russian.

"What happened to your phone? Do you not know that when it rings, or vibrates, or lights up, that somebody is attempting to contact you?" Natasha hissed. "I know you have it," she continued, reaching into Clint's pocket. "Right here. Oh." This last was said in English, as she pulled out the controller for his hearing aids.

"Realized I forgot my phone when I went to the range, and wasn't allowed to go and get it once Playboy here came and got me. I wasn't planning on leaving today; after this I had an appointment at Medical." Slipping on his sunglasses, Clint continued, "guess I'll be missing that one. Can I borrow...no. Could you do me a favor and call them for me? Tell them to charge my missed appointment to Stark?"

Natasha laughed, a low, quiet chuckle, as she complied. Climbing into the limo, she snapped her phone shut and poked Tony in the chest. "You are to have both Clint and myself back here by 9 AM tomorrow at the latest, or else there will be trouble."

Fitting into the limousine with the others was interesting. Thor and Steve managed to take up a good amount of the room, and the sheer amount of presence that Tony had cut down even further on a rather small space. Clint didn't really have much to say to anybody but Natasha, which was fine by him; while he could draw some connections between his life and those of the others', he was quite happy to simply sit there wedged into a corner and observe.

"Would it have killed you, Tony, to have allowed some of us showers?" Steve had obviously been subject to the same force of nature that Clint had and had been dragged straight from working out. "Or at least a change of clothes?"

"It's a short enough ride, don't worry about it," Tony drawled, leaning back into his seat. "Besides, I think that you'll like where we're going. And on that note, everybody out of the car."

Climbing out, Clint debated simply turning around and walking back to the SHIELD post when he realized that Tony had dragged them all off to Stark Tower. If he ran, he'd still be able to make his appointment at Medical, and then finish reading his book. Looking around, he realized that he wouldn't get that chance, not with Tony herding them along, Pepper joining the group somewhere between the limo and the elevator. Leaning against the wall, he caught Natasha's eyes and watched as she rolled them, a small smile on her face, as Pepper quietly informed Tony that she did have a company to run even though it was really _his_ job to be in charge, which meant that this little matter could have been dealt with _after _normal business hours.

"They're doing it again." Banner's wistful voice broke into the silent conversation that Clint and Natasha had been having. "It must be nice, being close enough to somebody to talk like that."

A quirk of Clint's eyebrow had Natasha laughing. "You, Dr. Banner, would not like to go through much of what we went through to reach this state. It has taken Clint and I much time and experience. Although yes, it is nice."

"Russia, China, Chile, Bosnia, Iraq..." Clint muttered. "Remember that little flophouse a couple years ago? Drove people nuts how you'd talk to everybody but me."

"And you never said a word."

"Alrighty then, not to interrupt the little love-fest between our two assassins," Tony was starting to appear nervous as the elevator doors slid open, an odd look for the man. "Welcome to what I'd like to offer you as your new home."

Hanging back slightly as the others spread out, Clint took in the area. It looked like any other fancy apartment that he'd seen in pictures or on TV, with large windows looking out over Manhattan, clearly defined spaces, and a few doors. It screamed Stark.

"Bedrooms are up through there, kitchen through there, gym down through there, firing range is on the top floor, labs are down below, landing space for a Quinjet three floors down," Tony rattled off, pointing at various doors and staircases. "And yeah, I know that you all have places other than here, but Clint and Natasha's are little more than barracks and the Helicarrier might not even be near here, and it can be difficult to get over here from Brooklyn at times, or back to Brooklyn, Cap, and Bruce needs a place that isn't in the middle of nowhere, and when Thor is around I'm sure that he'd appreciate someplace and I'm doing the same to a place out west. Sorry that I couldn't give you a mansion, but they're in short supply in Midtown these days."

Glancing at Natasha, Clint wandered to peer in the kitchen, something that the SHIELD facilities didn't allow access to by anybody but the chefs. Something about an exploding turkey, but if anybody asked Clint, well, he'd perfected a wide range of innocent looks long before he'd even heard of a group called SHIELD. Turning around, he followed the others towards the bedrooms. Tony, the bastard, had even put their names on the doors. Opening the door with his name next to it, Clint smiled slightly to see that there was a door on the wall that he shared with Natasha; beyond that, it was like Tony – or rather, whoever Tony had gotten to design and decorate all this – had given him a space that was exactly as he would have made it. Just a bit richer, a bit more plush. He wandered around, lightly touching things, running his hand over the back of a sofa. The number of mirrors could have been gaudy, but they were nice touches, placed discretely, and allowed him to see everything without moving too much.

"I had them put in some stuff that the ADA says should be here, plus there is a connection to JARVIS through the TV and keyboard, and the building is wired to take advantage of the technology of your hearing aids with the microphones I've got placed for JARVIS. Some of this new stuff wasn't in the original plans, and the work was a bit short notice, compared to the rest of the place, so sorry if it still smells like paint." Tony was leaning against the doorjamb, pointing out various spots in the room. "Feel free to change stuff, though. I was going off of what I could hack from the SHIELD databases about all of you. Did you know that they've got information on you going back to birth?"

Clint looked up at that, pinning Tony with a gaze that made the other man realize that for all his reticence, the archer truly was a dangerous man when provoked. "And we don't ever speak of that. Understand?"

"Crystal. Just like I locked down everything even tighter than it was already. Sit down, Barton, I'm not done with that conversation." Tony sauntered in with a couple glasses in his hands, handing one to Clint, and sat down on a chair. "This," he gestured around him with his glass, "has multiple reasons for existing. Sure, we don't work together all that much, but if – _when –_ we do, having someplace to meet that's a bit better than the Helicarrier or whatever meeting room Fury or Hill or whoever has booked that day will be valuable. This also provides a place for people to relax and get away from needing to be Hawkeye. The Black Widow. Captain Rogers. Iron Man. And yeah, your and Natasha's rooms? That was a very healthy feeling of guilt on my part. What happened I just can't throw money at to fix, I can't make your pasts any better, but I can help contribute to a slightly better future. This also allows SHIELD an in with Stark Industries, because I have locked down very few doors from you and Natasha. If you tried, you could get into any single room in this building at any time, prove that I'm on the up whenever you get bored, or Fury gets an itch. You don't even have to sneak in somebody as a new assistant. Sure, I'll make you work to get at stuff in the computers, but that's a matter of personal and professional pride. You don't have the market cornered on misery and shitty history, Barton, none of us do, and it'd be nice if you'd open up a little bit more and let people in who just want to help. I don't want to be best friends, I don't think any of us can be, we're too volatile, too different, for that, but I would like to know that I'm not going to get shot in the back with an arrow in my sleep." With that parting shot, Tony stood and left the room as Natasha wandered in.

"I won't move in, but I won't turn it down, either," Clint said without looking at her, the glass tumbler held loosely in his hands. The "yet" hung over the two.

"Don't make a decision just yet, come see the rest of the facilities. Do your like your rooms? It wasn't Tony's design, they were more mine."

Facing his partner, Clint tilted his head to the side slightly in a silent question.

"Pepper was more the driving force behind this than Tony; he just gave her a general list of things, of ideas, and I know that she did much of the planning herself. This has been in development for a while now; she says that it was not long after Loki came around for the Tesseract. When he gave the instructions to Pepper, she did ask me what we would prefer." Walking into the bedroom, Natasha called out, "But the beds are divine, and you will like yours."

Giving up on trying to feel upset, Clint followed Natasha into the next room. She was sitting on a couch positioned under a loft bed, a small smile on her face. "See? A nest for a Hawk!" As he sat down next to her, she nudged his shoulder slightly. "I heard what Tony said. And I believe that he is partially correct, but also partially wrong. Nothing that he can do will make up for my past, for yours, but I do believe that, given time, you can be friends, just as I have become friends with Pepper and have even gone out with Jane Foster when her work has brought her here. And you most certainly aren't miserable. You are you." Taking the glass out of his hand, she took a deep drink. "Ah, he gets the good stuff." Clint grinned at her. "You know I'm right, though, about everything." Glancing at the ceiling, he noticed a grate, just large enough for a human to climb through. With a lock, which was curious. Following his glance, she continued, "I have one, too, and I suspect that should we ask, there are maps of the layout of the building."

"Let's keep on looking. And Natasha? You're right. Still think he's an ass though. Question, though. Turkey first or chicken?"

"Start small. Make me…meatloaf, then we can discuss how else to destroy the kitchen."


	6. Chapter 6

Time passes rather quickly here.

* * *

Clint was, by nature, an introvert, and trust came slowly to him. It wasn't anything _personal_; it was just that trust given freely was the trust most often broken, in his experience. He'd had people tell him in the past that there were treatments for this sort of thing, but he didn't call it a problem, and he was actually quite content with his life, until the Psych department got it into their heads that he wasn't happy for whatever reason which led to weeks of talking, and them trying to give him medication, until he got Coulson or Fury or Hill put a stop to it. Sure, the Loki and Tesseract thing was a good start towards trusting the band of chaos that called themselves the Avengers Initiative, but it wasn't quite enough, seeing as how he'd spent most of it as a bad guy and the rest of it with the headache from hell, and subsequent interactions with the group were usually spent with him on top of a building someplace, never in a casual situation. Still, he and Natasha made the decision to take Tony up on his offer, and soon the entire group was spending most of their nights at Stark Tower. They kept their quarters on the Helicarrier – sometimes it wasn't worth it to fly between it and Manhattan – but their personal belongings were slowly transferred over.

The rest of the group living at the tower had become accustomed to gathering in front of the TV, and seeing Clint lurking in the hallway or at the top of the stairs, but as the days went by he slowly moved closer, to a different part of the room, usually doing basic weapon maintenance or working on a laptop. He never said if he was watching or not, but the TV always had closed captioning set up, "just in case," Natasha said one night as they were relaxing in her room, "since I never say if you really are paying attention, or if you are using your hearing aids. But how can you stand to watch some of that junk?" Pepper caught them dancing together several times in Natasha's room "because," Natasha said when Pepper asked, "there are situations that call for the both of us to be undercover, and we do have to know a bit about dancing together, so we practice," and although he didn't do any sort of working out with the others, he also didn't vanish when somebody else was in the gym or on the firing range. Natasha dragged him out to dinner with the others at times, and he did even contribute to the conversation, usually with humorous results. They also became used to finding notes and small treats left lying around usually locked rooms; when asked, Clint would just smile innocently and act like he hadn't heard. Natasha just said that they were lucky he hadn't started pranking. Most of the time, however, it was as if the archer was a paranoid ghost, with his back always to the wall and an escape route clearly plotted, if he was even visible.

So when the tower's residents emerged from their rooms one morning to hear music blaring from the kitchen and found Clint and Natasha dancing around the kitchen making breakfast in an odd pas-de-deux, it was a bit of a shock. Even more of a shock was that the two were dressed in what appeared to be their pajamas. Jane, who was "just visiting" since Thor had come in from Asgard for some rather spurious reason two days before, gasped slightly at the sight. Spinning Natasha around and spotting the group at the door, all that Clint said was "you're up early," as he put a large plate of pancakes on the counter, speaking in the tone of voice that suggested he had neglected to put his hearing aids in that morning. "Be back."

"Was that," Tony had a funny look on his face as the archer left the kitchen. "Were you two _dancing_?"

"It was not football," Natasha quipped, as she put the food on the table which was already set and covered with platters. "Eat up."

"But, why?"

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Natasha quoted as she left the room and Clint reentered, dressed in casual clothes.

"Not eating yet?" Clint couldn't help but grin at the perplexed looks he was receiving. Sitting down at the table and sending a pointed glance at the others, he prepared a plate.

Starting to eat, Clint stared at Tony steadily.

"Are you drunk? High? Wait, you slept with Natasha last night!"

"No, no, and it is none of your business. He is also playing with you, by not using his hearing aids." As Natasha sat down next to Clint, she lightly slapped his shoulder. When he turned to face her, eyes twinkling with a suppressed laugh, she slowly signed "can I talk?" When he didn't respond, Natasha picked up a fork and reached over to Clint's plate, starting to eat the eggs.

A hand on her arm made her pause. "Tell 'em," Clint said as he stood up, shoving his plate in front of Natasha. "Five minutes."

Natasha turned back to the others. "I am surprised that you did not know this, after all, it is in our files that I know you, at least, read, Tony. It is our anniversary."

At their startled exclamations, Natasha rolled her eyes and elaborated. "Of our _partnership_. We aren't married. Clint was the one who brought me in, with Coulson. We always celebrate this day, if we are able. Even if it is just a phone call. Some years we may also condense other celebrations into this day."

Natasha started eating quickly. "We will discuss this more later. Just know this. If you do anything to hurt him, you _will_ answer to me. The only other people that _he_ has trusted in recent memory were Phil Coulson, Director Fury and Agent Hill, partially because they are classified as our superiors, and I'm sure that he will tell you more, later, if he wants." Standing up as Clint came back in, handing her a jacket and small purse and rubbing lightly at his ear, she finished with a bright smile, "ah, yes, what else I was supposed to tell you. He was originally sent to kill me, if any of you did not know or remember that particular fact. Coulson and Fury both said he should, so what does that suggest to you?"

As the two left, Clint yelled back "taking the car, Dad, don't wait up!"

"Who was he talking to?" Tony glanced around the rest of the table. "JARVIS, did he take one of my cars? Please tell me he didn't take the Roadster."

"Agent Barton is in possession of his own vehicle, which I believe he borrowed from SHIELD," the smooth tones of the AI cut over the laughter at the table. "I believe that it is much more suitable for what Agents Barton and Romanoff have planned for today which includes, I believe, time spent in the mountains if their discussion of 'muddy roads' has any bearing on their destination. They also spent time obtaining current information on local museums. Additionally, in my discussions with Agent Barton, I do believe that he was referring to you, sir, in his parting comment. I have found it most enlightening to communicate with both Agents Barton and Romanoff since they took up primary residence here, and I suspect that he was 'funning' with you."

"He talks with my AI more than he talks with the rest of us." Tony felt disquieted. "Combined. What's wrong with that picture?"

"Simple, Tony. It's easier to talk to a computer when he's up late at night, instead of waking somebody else up. It's also probably how he's getting stuff into all those locked rooms." Bruce took a bite of his breakfast. "Wow. Have you tried the food yet? I don't think he buys all those treats that keep showing up."

"You are correct in that the majority of our conversations take place when the rest of you are otherwise occupied, Dr. Banner," Jarvis cut in, "but he has not obtained any assistance in going through locked doors. He uses the ventilation system, which is why all of the outlets in your quarters are equipped with the ability to lock, although if you do not wish him to enter I would suggest actually locking them, but he has stated his plan to wait to enter your quarters until you have given him permission. Both agents have stated their amusement with the maps that you ordered posted in the ventilation shafts sir, and have changed them multiple times to be increasingly incorrect; if there is any need to go into them, I would recommend asking for a guide. And yes, Agent Barton does have a rather extensive recipe collection saved to the database, of which only a portion appears to produce food that the average person would find edible, and Agent Romanoff has assisted him quite a bit in the kitchen, although she chooses to store her recipes on paper."

"Ohmygosh, if this is what breakfast is like every day here then I'm moving in." Jane had watched everything, wide-eyed.

"That's...interesting," was Steve's only contribution to the conversation. Pepper and Thor simply nodded.

Later, Tony found a note left sitting in the middle of his workshop table. Opening it, he smiled faintly as he read "Docs tomorrow. Be there 1 pm or the suit gets it."


	7. Chapter 7

Backstory, and this is where everything ends up all mushed around.

* * *

Tony strolled into the Helicarrier's medical facility promptly at 1 PM the next day, only to have his arm taken by Natasha, who smoothly turned him around and walked him to Clint's quarters. Without saying a word the entire time, she opened the door, shoved him through, and closed the door.

"I was five when I entered an orphanage in middle-of-nowhereville, Iowa," Clint's flat voice had Tony glancing around, finally locating the archer lying on his back on top of a wardrobe. "It closed down about fifteen years ago. I have no recollection of having a loving family, ever, just a lot of yelling, and then my parents died. They were drunk, the car crashed. Every kid says that they're going to run away and join the circus the first time they see one – well, I was that one kid who actually snuck out and did so, successfully. Although I think that my brother Barney was more of the driving force behind that; he was 13 and I was 11 when we left. He was protective, did that whole big brother thing, even after it was found out that I had the skills to become one of the acts, and all that he did was collect tickets and clean up after the animals. God, was I young. I told myself that all that praise was for being so good at shooting and bringing all those people to see us; I was only partially correct. They loved having all those people show up because later? There would be a chain of crimes that really only stopped after the circus left town. The first time I went out with them I was 15 and able to hotwire a car."

Jumping down, Clint eyed Tony and started to pace. "Sit down. Nothing to drink here, I was planning on raiding your private stash tonight. So, it took me a while to realize just what exactly was going on. My brother? He was brought into the whole deal pretty quick. He was able to get out, though, join the Army, then the FBI. He died in a raid gone wrong, didn't even try to look me up after he left. Me, I was 'young and innocent,' without 'decent role-models during my formative years,' according to the public defender I had. It also helped that I at least tried to stand up to them one time, don't ask me why. Three days in the ICU with a cop by the door when my mentor," his tone was faintly mocking, now, "didn't want to take me saying no for an answer. I'm just lucky that he didn't go for my eyes or hands, but to be fair, he was trying to kill me, not just destroy my future. That's when I was caught for the first time, when the homeowners got home and found me laying in their living room with their kid tied up in a closet. I got juvie until I hit 18; I think the judge also felt sorry for me. Hundred bucks in my pocket, a bow, clothes on my back." Here Clint paused, taking a couple deep breaths. "Thought about the military, but couldn't pass all the tests to get in, never mind the background check, especially since things were changing in the military. School was never a big thing of mine, although I went for a few years in the orphanage and they made me sit in classes during my time in juvie, so getting my GED was never an option I considered. Ended up in another circus; all that I could do, really, and just floated from one to another until I ended up at Coney Island.

"These circuses weren't the big-name ones, just the tiny ones that folks are always after to shut down. Money was the biggest problem, followed by things like food and places to sleep. For most of us, home was whatever flat space we could find in a trailer. I went back to petty crime, since it was a way to help make ends meet. Usually didn't get caught, and if I did, well, there were enough half-truths and I looked pretty damn young so that people felt bad for me, and this was also before these small-town police departments started upgrading their technology. I was twenty when the news caught up to me: my brother had died. I didn't claim his belongings, didn't even try to find out where he's buried. I didn't care, because everybody that I had looked up to, _trusted_, had let me down. I still don't. Then SHIELD came sniffing a little bit after that. I was looking for something solid, something constant, so when they offered, I took. Still don't know how they learned about me, or even why they wanted somebody as screwed up as I was.

"The first few months were tough, because I fought tooth and nail when they tried to make me get my GED. The fighting side of it, the more military style? I lapped it up like it was a bowl of cream and I was a damn cat. Then Coulson came along, gave me a verbal smackdown. No GED, no job, 'sir, can you spare a dollar?' sort of thing. Then he dragged me out to a bar, got us both roaring drunk, and told me, 'Clin' you'se smart. Coul' do lots with us. Wish you was family.' Woke up the next morning in my bed with the worst hangover I'd ever had, and a pile of books on my desk." Tony found it slightly eery, the way that Clint was able to parrot Phil Coulson's voice, and sat back in the desk chair, his arms crossed, as Clint jumped back up on the wardrobe. "It was a couple GED study guides and a pile of fiction. I don't know how, but he managed to find the type of stuff that I had tried to keep around for myself in the past. He was good like that. That evening I was sitting there eating when he sits down across from me. Never said a word, just sat there and ate his god-damned jello. When he was finished, he looked right at me and said 'Meant every word. You get your GED in six months, I'll buy you a new bow. Reward for a job well done, is how _my_ family works. You have any problems, need any help, you let me know.'" Tony watched as Clint rubbed his face. "Bastard showed me how much fun learning could be, and how if I'd used my brain that I could've done damn near anything. He got me flying lessons, even got me to go to college, and wasn't that a laugh and half, because one day I'd be studying for a test, the next day I'd be off to wherever and not return for a week, covered in scratches and bruises. Classmates thought I was an underground cage fighter, since I couldn't say how I got all beat up. Or in an abusive relationship."

Pausing for Tony's snort of laughter, Clint nodded. "And yeah, I got a degree. Majored in political science – international relations – with a couple minors. Not because it was my first choice, but because it was useful to SHIELD. To Coulson." Clint's eyes were hard, and pinned Tony in his seat. "Like I said, I found out how much fun learning could be, even if I wasn't fully invested in it. And every time I had a major accomplishment, there'd he be, with a reward and a 'well done, Barton, now show me what else you've got.' New bow, extra time off, that sort of thing. And all through it, my loyalty to SHIELD was increasing. I couldn't give a damn about some of the people around here, because I always saw them as having had the perfect life, and it always felt like I was on display, performing the role that they wanted me to play. They also didn't know what to do with me, because my reactions were not 'normal,' but I really can't stand being around people all the time and it showed. The most interaction that I had with the average employee was to play a practical joke or order them around, once I got high enough in the hierarchy. But Coulson...he cared about _me. _Clint Barton, not Hawkeye. Sure, he was focused on making sure that I didn't snap one day and kill everybody, they do that for all of the people like me and Natasha, he wanted what was best for SHIELD, but there were times that I know he told people to go fuck themselves when they just wanted me to go do something stupid that could've been done by the secretary."

"Coulson did a lot of things, so yeah, he wasn't always around. Absentee parenting or something like that – he had never been married, didn't have any kids – and in a screwed up way it all worked, better than you'd think. He became a friend, not a father-figure or role-model, but there was a bit of that in there. He'd always give me full background on my missions, and I eventually ended up with the clearance and rank to see the raw intelligence data. That's how I learned some stuff about Natasha, the signs that she may have wanted to switch sides. Let's just say about her, it came down to the two of us standing with guns pointed at each other, Coulson flipping out over the radio, and suddenly she tilted her head to the side and asked me if my boss would be as upset as her boss would be if she went with me. Coulson didn't know if he wanted to laugh, cry, or smack me when I walked through the door of the safe house and asked, 'she followed me home, Dad, can I keep her?' and you've seen how that's turned out."

"She's your partner."

"More than that. She's...shit, I can't really describe Tasha. She's a part of me now. Where one goes, the other will eventually follow. It's like a sappy Hallmark card, 'you complete me,' thing. I'd follow her to Hell and back, and she'd do the same for me. And then you, and Dr. Banner, and Steve, and Thor all came onto the radar here at SHIELD. You really started to worry some folks, let me tell you that, which is just one of the reasons that Tasha went undercover. Your attitude, your knowledge, and your sheer enthusiasm were like a trifecta of red flags that you were either going to be very, very good or be the cause of World War Three, but we were willing to just watch and wait. Thor showing up proved to us, once and for all, that we aren't alone out there, and so Fury had in his mind the idea that all of you guys could team up in case something big went down. Me and Natasha? Along for the ride, but we also had skill sets that meant that we could keep up with you. But we were never meant to be at the same level when it came down to basic fighting. So how everything fell out with Loki that first time was really a surprise at all levels, all the way up to the World Security Council. I think the end result was really the only reason that Director Fury and Agent Hill weren't on their way to some post in the middle of Antarctica, and some flunky becoming the new director of SHIELD with the rest of us shoved into some prison cell someplace if not dead."

"So, why tell me all this?"

"I trust you, Tasha trusts you. More than the others with some things, which is one reason why I haven't said anything until now. We also think that you'd be a damn good friend to have. Let's go, I wasn't lying about meeting with the doctors."

Those three words were like a physical blow to Tony, who couldn't move until Clint touched his shoulder. "But why me? Why not Bruce? Or Steve? Or Pepper, even she's a better choice than I am."

Clint rubbed his hand over his face. "Because, Tony, none of them would have said what you've said to me in the past. You're honest, brutally so, and yeah, you can lie with the best of them, but it's not something that you like to do, is it." A statement, not a question. "Plus, you can keep a secret. Me and Natasha have been living with all of you for two months now, do you really think that we haven't been watching and making our own decisions, drawing our own conclusions? I've read your profiles, too; it's part of my job. Do you quite honestly think that any of the others would have done what you did, offer up their home to a bunch of people that they didn't know based on some pretty crappy reasons and after such a short time working together? I know that you started planning all that as soon as Thor took Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard. Yeah, me and Natasha don't have ideal lives, but we're cool with that, mostly. Dr. Banner isn't completely sure that he wants to be here or if he'd rather be off in some random country trying to pay off his self-perceived debts to society, Thor is rarely here and we do have to remember that his viewpoint isn't nearly the same as ours for all that he loves Earth and has said that it's under his 'protection,' and the Captain wouldn't be able to wrap his mind around some of the things that I've done in the past, because deep at heart he's still that idealistic kid of the forties when fighting the good fight meant HYDRA and Nazis, not IEDs and terrorists. Plus, his attitude towards the rest of my work here at SHIELD is not one that I like or am comfortable with, and I'm just waiting for a blow up between me and him, and having somebody to help keep me from doing that would be kinda nice. You also know the realities of the world, since a lot of SHIELD enemies aren't very happy with Stark Industries these days. Pepper is Tasha's little dose of reality; they end up having lunch together at least twice a month that I know of, but probably more. You think my _profile_ gave you everything? I went back and looked up what you got, and half of it was lies, the other half smoothed over, because they keep the data on most of the bigger folks in SHIELD on computers that aren't connected to the network, so they're harder to hack. Most of my room came from Pepper working with Tasha. Move it, Tony, they're waiting."

Clint leaned around Tony, scooping a pile of papers off the desk, and walked out the door, leaving Tony no option but to follow. Natasha was leaning against the wall, and she smoothly swung around and started walking next to Clint. "You didn't kill him then, I see."

Glancing at his partner, Clint smiled faintly. "Didn't even want to, this time. Made him speechless."

"Did you tell him?"

"Mostly." Clint glanced over at Tony. "Think I broke him?"

Natasha peered around Clint. "Quite possibly. Do you think that Pepper will forgive us?"

"Probably. Hey, Tony. Have you seen the exhibit at the Met that has your name all over it?" As the trio walked down the hall, they discussed what Clint and Natasha had done the day before, as well as various museums and other places to go in New York.

"Agent Barton! Agent Romanoff!" The group turned, spotting Agent Sitwell jogging up behind them, juggling two tablets. "Mr. Stark," he nodded, "Agents, do you have a moment?"

"We're due in medical," Clint said, frowning slightly, "but we can meet with you in an hour?"

"Of course," Agent Sitwell started to say.

"I'll talk to the doctors while you're talking to Agent…agent here." Tony interrupted, grabbing the file out of Clint's hand and waving his hand at Agent Sitwell. "I think there are some things that can be changed here, give me a few minutes, you'd be lost..." he continued talking as he walked off.

"Very well then," Agent Sitwell held out the tablets. "We have an assignment for the two of you; here are the preliminary findings and our proposals, as well as the surveillance and other data that we've collected. Please meet with me tomorrow at 11 to finish discussing this, and work out some of the finer details. I'll be your handler for now, if that is agreeable to the both of you."

"We shall see," Natasha said delicately, taking the tablets. "But as Clint said, we have to be someplace, so we will discuss this tomorrow." She took Clint's arm and steered them down the hall, speaking in a low tone, "we'll talk about this later."


	8. Chapter 8

Moving forward, less angst.

* * *

The meeting with the doctors went better than Clint had expected, especially considering that the question was about putting barely tested Stark technology in his head and Tony was either uncharacteristically quiet or making alterations to the plans, and he and Natasha released themselves for the rest of the day, returning to what had been Stark Tower, but was now being affectionately referred to as the Avenger's Tower, at least at SHIELD.

Foregoing the privacy of one of their rooms for the higher comfort of the common area, Clint and Natasha sprawled out on a couch, turning the TV onto a news station. With reports of the state of the world quietly playing in the background, the two reviewed the mission briefing and data that Agent Sitwell had handed them, their first of this type since well before the Avengers. Privately, each was relieved that they'd be working together on something purely SHIELD, and not having to keep up with the Avengers or worry about destroying Manhattan; an assassination rarely required damages that ran into the millions of dollars or calling out the National Guard for crowd control. Not that they'd tell that to anybody but each other.

"It looks easy enough," Natasha finally said, "the challenge will be integrating in a relatively short amount of time with the target, and then getting him off by himself." She turned, leaning back against the arm of the couch, dropping her feet in Clint's lap, forcing him to grab his laptop before it fell.

He responded to the move by shifting slightly to better face her, one hand dropping to start rubbing her feet while the other put the laptop on her legs. "The challenge will be Sitwell, working with him like this. I knew that this had to happen eventually, Tasha, but knowing and then seeing are two very different things. Integration is easy enough, taking a look at how he spends money, he loves drinking in expensive places, being seen with pretty ladies," he pointed a finger at Natasha, "and 'discrete liaisons' with pretty boys. Two options, then. We both go under, or I shoot and you tease. I think I remember most of the bartending stuff, if you'd rather the first. At least we'll be able to speak English."

Natasha made a small face of disgust. "You're right, again." Ignoring Clint's smirk of triumph, she continued "but I think that both of us going in would be better. He never really seems to go off someplace where you'd get a good safe shot. He drives himself, or has a bodyguard of many years do it, so having you drive would be difficult, which means, yes, bartender. Slip him something in his drink? Or you could be a pretty boy?" She leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling. "Do you think Sitwell will work with us? You've actually worked more with him than I have."

"If he's smart, he will. I know that Coulson kept notes, but will he read them? Most of my assignments that he was around had Coulson as a buffer, and we really didn't interact much beyond saying hello, if at all. He always seemed to be working with the scientists. JARVIS, do you have any bartending manuals?" Clint ignored the pretty boy comment; a small smile on Natasha's face suggested that she had noticed that, and would probably bring it up again later.

"I have twenty-three different manuals, Agent Barton. Would you like them all?"

"Please. Send them to my computer, thanks. Also, we never had this conversation. Understood?"

"Very well, Agent Barton. Manuals have been loaded on your computer; the password is 'Spain.'"

"Thanks, JARVIS," Clint rolled his head on his neck, feeling a level of tension leaving his body. "So we've got a draft. Is there any pattern about where he goes or how he finds his women?"

"Women seem to be ones that get picked up at random in bars. He does have a small selection of bars that he visits. First glance it appears random."

"Let me do this one thing…" Clint typed a query for a statistical analysis. "I love these programs. Yeah, there's a level of randomness, but look," he sent the results to Natasha, "he ends up at one more than the others in a rotation. It'll just be a matter of us predicting which one he ends up at the most while we're there and hoping that we get lucky."

The two continued throwing ideas back and forth, discussing different options and timing, until JARVIS interrupted them. "Excuse me, Agents Barton and Romanoff, but I believe that you do not desire this conversation to be heard by the others, is that correct?"

"Yeah," Clint said, already starting to change screens on the tablets as Natasha started flipping through channels on the TV. "Someone's coming?"

When Steve, Tony, and Pepper came into the room, they found Natasha and Clint stretched out on the couch and each other, with a hockey game on the television and the two SHIELD operatives deeply involved in their computers. "Ace, ace, ace," Clint was muttering under his breath. "Where's that ace?"

Steve peered over Clint's shoulder. "Card games?"

"Solitare death match. Whoever has the least money at the end of the period breaks the bad news to Tony."

"What bad news?" Tony started to look around the room, "Did you two destroy the kitchen? The range? My lab? Don't tell me Natasha beat up Happy again."

Natasha looked at Tony as a buzzer went off from the TV. "Time, Clint. Show 'em!"

"Twenty. Black."

"Five hundred and fifty-five. Black. Tell me again why you chose this game, when I always win?"

"Damn. Is that even possible, you had to have reprogrammed the game. And you chose it, remember? Rematch?" At Natasha's smirk, and Tony's yelp of dismay, Clint sighed and tilted his head back until he could see the billionaire, lips quirking. "We broke JARVIS. Sorry."

"What! You did what? How can you break a...JARVIS?" Tony narrowed his eyes, glaring at Clint and Natasha.

"Yes, sir? And might I add, welcome home, sir, Ms. Potts, Mr. Rogers." The AI responded. "Agents Barton and Romanoff are, again, 'funning' with you, sir. There is no damage done, as they have spent the past four hours on the couch. They even took their shoes off before, sir, as you can very well see."

"Clint rubs feet very well." Natasha had an impish grin on her face.

"And the Russian wench won't return the favor."

"Your feet stink!"

"So would yours, if you wore combat boots most of the day!"

"I dare you to wear high heels, then!"

Tony turned and stalked off, muttering under his breath about irresponsible Russians and delinquent archers, as Natasha and Clint grinned at each other.

"That wasn't very nice," Steve pointed out, glancing at where Tony had walked off. "You know how important JARVIS is to Tony."

"Oh, relax Steve." Pepper had a small smile on her face. "Tony needed it. He's had a long day. Clint, Natasha, we were all going out for dinner, would you like to join us?"

Natasha had a mischievous glint in her eyes as she raised one hand and started to fingerspell "pretty." Clint hastily asked where they wanted to go, and when.


	9. Chapter 9

In the films, we see Sitwell at computers. He does more in the comics, but true to form, I'm stirring everything up.

* * *

Clint decided that meeting with Sitwell was, initially, almost as painful as breaking a finger. The man tried, really, but he was glad that the first mission with Sitwell as handler was something that was almost routine for him and Natasha, because the man was questioning every decision that the two had made.

"Both of you will be undercover?" Sitwell glanced at the two agents sitting patiently across from him. "That's slightly unusual for your particular skill sets, Barton."

"It isn't, actually." Clint shifted slightly in his chair, trying to get comfortable. "This is a pretty basic deal – get in, kill him, get out. The variables are ones that we've worked with before, we're both going in roles that we've used before, and the location isn't all that difficult, since there aren't any overt hostilities in that region."

"We suspect that this is an assignment that really didn't need us, as it could be completed with the resources already on scene," Natasha broke in, "but we haven't had a chance to ask. This is probably to allow you and us a chance to start working together and establish a relationship in the field."

"There is a matter of trust," Clint took up the thread of conversation, "mostly because we've only worked with Coulson in the past as a team, and...some other reasons. You've read our mission reports, and Coulson's, and I know that he had left other notes on those missions, that didn't make it into the official reports."

Sitwell grinned, leaning back in his chair. "He did. It's actually pretty common for those of us who do work as handlers to share notes about how to work with the operatives, just for situations like this; it's not something that's spread around, so I'd thank you to not tell folks. And yes, this is for us to start learning how to work together without Phil along as a buffer, and in an undercover situation. I'm just really along for the ride, this time, and to work with local law enforcement as needed, but if you do need me to work with them, I've a house that needs cleaning with toothbrushes; you both are good enough to not get caught if you don't want to in this sort of situation. You two aren't the first people that I've been a handler for, just the most unique. I trust that you both have things under control. I really don't know how Phil did it, but I've got several irons in the fire, and it's pretty hard to keep up sometimes. I am glad that you were able to work everything out for this mission."

Clint and Natasha glanced at each other in surprise, then relaxed as Sitwell handed them both sodas.

"House?"

"New Montana safehouse. Middle of nowhere, surrounded by forests, about 2000 square feet, it's absolutely gorgeous for a SHIELD house. Do good and I'll show you it sometime. Leaving next week enough time? Barton, when is your surgery scheduled, if you're actually going through with Stark's crazy idea?"

Clint looked up from the can in his hands, startled at how familiar the conversation seemed. "Time is perfect. Surgery hasn't been scheduled yet, but can be done the day after we get back, especially since it's using some proven stuff that's just had a Stark spin put on it; the docs are running simulations and testing the new parts right now. Expected downtime after that is another three to six weeks, depending on how well everything heals and integrates."

"Good. And just so you two know, I'm not Coulson, and I'm not looking to completely replace him. God, this feels more like I'm a step-parent, not a co-worker, and we're going to have to do something about that sometime. But. Anyways. Start getting everything ready, and get the hell out of my office. What are you, paperweights?"

As Clint opened his bow case to get some time in at SHIELD's range that afternoon, he noticed that someone had gotten to it before him. Lying on the top, with a ribbon, was a pink toothbrush. Maybe this wouldn't be as painful as he first thought, he mused as he laughed softly.

* * *

There was no doubt in Clint's mind just how much he relied on his hearing in hand-to-hand combat, which led to the situation that he found himself in the day after the meeting with Sitwell. Hearing aids tucked away in his gym bag, he was facing Natasha in the tower's gym, hoping to keep working out a few new fighting techniques because he wasn't trying to fool himself – as well seated as his hearing aids could be, there was always a risk that he'd lose one or both and they both would rather that he not have to learn anything on the fly. They started as soon as he'd been cleared by Medical, but their assignment put an extra sense of urgency on the pair to make sure that Clint could defend himself.

They had quickly figured out that his best bet would be to have his back to a solid surface such that nobody could sneak up behind him; the problem was when he was in an open area.

"I think," Clint said from his position on the floor after Natasha had "killed" him for the third time in a row, "that I'm going to have to go for the kill a lot more, or at the very least put people down hard enough the first time so that they won't get back up."

"Oh?" She signed. "How?"

"Fewer people to sneak up from behind means less of a chance of getting hurt, for one." He stood up. "Lot harder to fight if I go for the eyes with a knife."

"How many were you thinking of carrying?" Natasha rolled her shoulders, walking around the mat.

"At least three, maybe more, and some throwing knives, too, that whole distance thing." Clint turned, keeping Natasha in his sights.

"Maybe be more consistent with carrying a gun, too," she responded, eyes glancing around the room.

Clint turned slightly, keeping his partner in view, but wasn't expecting the sudden grab and throw from behind as Steve Rogers joined in the fight. Controlling his fall, he responded by grabbing at Steve's still-outstretched hand, pulling the other man down to the floor with him, only to feel a prick of a practice knife at his neck as Natasha moved in for the kill.

Steve's lips moved, obviously saying something. Clint watched the other man, trying to figure out just what exactly he was saying. "You want to help?" Steve nodded. "Sure."

Natasha lightly punched Clint in the shoulder. "Good job on the lip reading," she signed, speaking out loud for Steve's benefit. "Can I stop signing now?"

"Nope," Clint grinned. "We both need to stay in practice. Just a sec, I want to grab some more weapons." He walked to a storage cabinet, pulling out more knives and a small practice handgun, with sheaths and a holster. Once he felt that he could still move and not worry about losing a knife, he grabbed another knife and gun, handing them off to Steve. "You haven't seen me and Tasha practice like this before. Don't hold back, don't break limbs. We fight dirty."

Steve nodded, clipping the knife and gun onto the waistband of his sweats. The three spent another hour fighting, until Natasha called time, and indicated that Clint should put his hearing aids back in.

"It's time for supper," she said, gathering up the weapons from where they'd fallen on the floor as Clint complied with her instructions. "What's your take, Clint?"

"Same as it's always been. I just hope I don't have to fight deaf," he said, "but I can probably handle a few minutes. If it goes any longer than that, then it's something big, and hopefully I'll have my bow and be up high."

Steve rolled his head, stretching out his neck. "I'll always make sure that you're on a rooftop or something, then, maybe one of us to help you out, keep an eye on your back."

Clint glanced at the other man out of the corner of his eye. "May not always have that option, Cap, and I don't take coddling well. I need a shower, and I think that Pepper ordered in pizza tonight, since there's a baseball game on, so let's go."


	10. Chapter 10

It was going so well with Steve, too.

* * *

When Clint and Natasha realized that the majority of the things that they needed for the mission were at the Tower, they simply shrugged and took over the kitchen table for their preparation, which meant that the rest of the Avengers were treated to a novel sight one evening, as Clint and Natasha had spread weapons and personal belongings across said table and were busy passing things back and forth, stowing it all in duffel bags. Tony wandered over, picking up a purple toothbrush with a pink ribbon tied around it. "What's this?"

Natasha gently took the toothbrush from him, placing it back on the table. "Preparation. We're heading out in,"

"Fourteen" Clint interjected

"Fourteen hours. We will be gone for probably three or four weeks. Clint, do you have my,"

"Right here," Clint tossed Natasha her bracelets. "Were you going to,"

"Yes. Casual?"

"Rich. We're good. Dinner?"

"How about some explanations," Steve broke in. "What is this for? Where are you two going for several weeks? Why haven't you told anybody?"

Natasha straightened up, looking at Steve levelly, as Clint finished putting everything into bags. "We just did tell you, that we are going out of town tomorrow, and will not return for up to four weeks. We were finishing up our preparations right now, and then spend tomorrow taking care of whatever else needs to be done. Let's call it a vacation."

"I needed to know about this, what if you are needed here." Steve sounded hurt and annoyed as he stood in front of Clint as the archer picked up the bags and started for the door.

"Steve, move." Clint's voice was hard. "This is need-to-know, and you do not need to know. You do not have the clearance, none of you do," glancing at everybody else in the kitchen, "This is not Avengers work, this is SHIELD work. Where we are going, what we are doing, is classified. Sorry for working out here, but this really was the best place, with the most space, and in the future we won't do our prep work in a common area. Trust me, you will be happier not knowing anything but what we've told you. Any issues, take it up with Fury, Hill, or Sitwell." The archer pushed past Steve and left the room, followed closely by Natasha, who was muttering under her breath.

"JARVIS," Tony began.

"You will not want me to repeat what Agent Romanoff was saying, sir; just rest assured that it was less than complimentary. I am unable to provide any more information than what you have been told, for which I can only offer my apologies."

Pepper had slipped out behind the two agents, and followed them down to their rooms. "Natasha? Clint? Is everything okay?"

"Pepper! Come on in." Natasha leaned out of Clint's door, beckoning. "We're both in here."

Pepper hadn't seen Clint's rooms since before he moved in, so she took the opportunity to look around. He hadn't changed much, just moved some things and added in some personal photos. "I wasn't aware that you were close to Phil," she murmured, picking up a photograph showing Clint dressed in a cap and gown, Coulson in his traditional black suit. The two men were grinning into the camera, and Clint was holding up a diploma and a small wooden plaque with Coulson's arm around his shoulder. "You went to college?"

"Yeah." Clint took the picture from her, surprisingly gentle. "It took me seven years. My classmates gave me a special plaque and some of my professors signed it when I did graduate. Phil wanted me to walk in the commencement ceremony and get this picture, if only to serve as a reminder that I wasn't a dumb carnie." As he placed the frame back on the table, he ran a finger over the top of it, almost reassuringly.

"Carnie?"

"I used to be in the circus," Clint pointed to a framed poster on the wall. "Hawkeye, the 'Greatest Marksman on Earth.' Did that until I went to SHIELD. Being in the circus meant that there wasn't much time for more traditional schooling, so the stereotype of circus people being uneducated is actually pretty true, at one level. At another, they're all pretty smart." Clint rubbed at his ear. "Sorry, I've got extended-wear hearing aids in. They're a little itchy."

"I think I may have seen you once, on Coney Island. Just so I can reassure people, you two will stay safe, and come back unharmed?"

Natasha gave Pepper a smile. "We will do nothing but our best. Now, we wanted to have dinner with you and Tony."

Clint headed into the bedroom, shrugging out of his uniform top. "What were you thinking, Tasha?"

"Barton!" The call rang down the hallway, "I want to talk to you!"

Clint leaned through the bedroom door, t-shirt in hand. "Not here, let me know what's up, I'll meet you there." He ducked back, a faint rattling suggesting that he had climbed into the ventilation system, as Steve barged in, Dr. Banner sheepishly following.

"Sorry, I tried to tell him to wait until after you got back, but he's not listening."

"Agent Romanoff. Where is Barton? I want to talk to him." Steve was glancing around the room, and started to walk towards the open door to the bedroom.

"Steven Rogers, you will stop right there." Natasha snapped. "You were not invited in, and so I will thank you to _leave_, before we have to make you." She subtly shifted position, preparing to physically force Steve back if needed. "This is Clint's private space, if he wants you in here, he will invite you in. You are being irrational and suspicious, and now is _not_ the time or the place."

Steve opened and shut his mouth a couple times, glaring around the room, before turning on one heel and stalking off. Dr. Banner shrugged, and quietly left, as Tony wandered up, talking to himself.

"I have decided," he announced, standing in the doorway. "Everybody here is nuts, with the exception of you, Pepper, and naturally myself. I have a private room at an Italian place reserved for all six of us, should I change that? And where is Legolas, anyways?"

"He'll meet us," Natasha said, "and I would suggest cutting that number down to four, yes. Just please don't try to find out information about what we're doing."

Clint slid smoothly through the air ducts, making his way to a vertical shaft that he had set up with a rope. If he was lucky, he could take it down a few floors, and then use the elevator the rest of the way, avoiding people that he really didn't want to deal with. "JARVIS."

"Yes, Agent Barton?" The speakers in the air ducts were not the best, and the AI sounded slightly tinny. Clint also noticed that it sounded more muffled than if he was wearing his regular hearing aids, and made a mental note to discuss that with the audiologist at some point in time, especially if the whole surgery thing didn't work out as well as everybody was hoping.

"Talk to me. Dinner, and positions of everybody?"

"Reservations have been made for four at a local restaurant. If you make your way to elevator three, you will be able to meet up with Agent Romanoff, Ms. Potts, and Mr. Stark prior to leaving the building. Mr. Rogers and Dr. Banner are both in the gym."

"Thanks." Clint found the spot he was looking for, and pushed the rope out. "Remind me to change this map later." If he went down two floors, then cut over…

A small thump was the only warning that the elevator's occupants had before a grate was lifted in the ceiling and Clint dropped through. "Miss me?" he asked with an impish grin. Noticing the duffel bags at Natasha's feet, he looked at her questioningly.

"I don't know about you, but I am not sleeping here tonight," she announced. "I'd suggest that you not return, either. Anything that we're missing we can get on the Helicarrier."

* * *

"I don't understand," Steve was at a punching bag, lightly punching it. "It's not how it's done, for them to just go off like that. What if they're needed here? What if they need our help? Why didn't they tell us sooner?"

"Is that truly the issue, Steve? Or is it something else?" Bruce was sitting on a weight bench, idly reviewing some research as he listened to Steve. "Out of everybody here, I'd have expected that you would be the most understanding about the need for secrecy and controlling a flow in information."

"That's just it, Bruce." Steve stopped punching, and leaned his forehead against the bag. "Whenever I went out with my guys, our superiors always knew where we were going, our mission objectives, and our plans. We wouldn't dream of hiding it from them. But these two, they hide a lot of things from us, and they're only human."

"So just because they aren't like the rest of us, they should be protected? Led around by the hand, like they were children? If you don't remember, they can keep up with you, Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk pretty easily, and I don't try to bet between Hawkeye and the Other Guy. The Hulk loses every single time, once Clint can grab one of his tranquilizer arrows. I also saw you with them in the gym the other day, and you were ending up on the floor just as much as Clint was, and you all looked like you were having fun. I wouldn't let you hear them call them 'only' human, either. Doubt that they'd take it well."

"I know, but," Steve started.

"No, I don't think you do." Bruce interrupted, standing up and walking over to Steve. "They're part of the Avengers Initiative, but they've got multiple roles in SHIELD, some of which I know I don't want to know about or understand. If I know this, then why don't you?" He narrowed his eyes, staring at the taller man. "I think you're jealous."

"Jealous? Why would you say that?"

"Because _they're_ in the know, and have access to more things than you do. They've been in the know long before you were even found in the Arctic, which makes you feel hurt. Plus, they've been doing this for longer than you have, if you count up how many years each of you have experienced. Natasha started as a little girl! Barton was recruited even before he was allowed to buy alcohol! The ten, twenty years that each of them have worked, they weren't sitting at desks doing paperwork. And you can't classify them the way that you like to, because they aren't military, for all that they act like they are. Face it Steve, this is part jealousy, and part discomfort, because some things aren't falling into place the way that you'd like them to. It's probably part anger, too, because they're answering to a superior that _isn't_ you, because they're in two chains of command and probably have a lot more loyalty to SHIELD than they do to the rest of us. You're really only in charge if it's an Avenger's thing, and even then it's just pointing everybody in a direction and letting them loose, then hoping that everything works out. For all that we're a team, we're still a bunch of loose cannons that runs the risk of blowing up."

Steve just shook his head, turning away from the other man. "I don't think you're right."

"I think I am. JARVIS?" Bruce queried, walking back to his seat. "Can you tell me what actual positions and titles Agents Barton and Romanoff have in SHIELD?"

"Unfortunately I am unable to do that, Dr. Banner. I am aware that they are part of the Avengers Initiative, and both have had a successful career as spies and assassins, but I have not been given the knowledge as to their rank nor actual positions in SHIELD." If an AI could sound upset, Bruce would swear that this one did. "I have been instructed to not look any further beyond what I am told, and the hacking that Mr. Stark has performed has been proven to have provided false information on the two."

"See, Steve? The level of classification around those two suggests that they're more than simple spies and assassins." Seeing the wince, Bruce rapidly came to other conclusions. "It's less that they can't tell you, and more that their job sometimes involves a knife in the dark, isn't it."

"It's not right," Steve started punching at the bag again, words interspersed with thumps. "These people that they kill need to be tried and sent to jail, not stabbed in the back and left to die in some dark alley."

Bruce didn't feel up to arguing any longer, so he didn't respond, just walked out of the room, shaking his head.

* * *

For Clint and Natasha, the night before leaving on a mission usually involved getting whatever was the most portable from the mess hall and eating alone in their rooms, not a multi-course meal in a semi-public venue. It was a novel experience, and the conversation was full of discussion about various exploits. Laughter from the hallway after Clint finished retelling one particularly amusing tale about a day at Coney Island that resulted in the bearded woman being found out to have _glued_ all the hair on her face indicated to the group that some of the restaurant staff was listening in, as well.

Clint and Natasha vanished not long after they had finished eating, with small salutes for Tony and Pepper. Watching the door after the operatives had left, Tony reached out for Pepper's hand.

"That was nice of you, Tony," she said, turning her hand up and caressing his palm. "I think that both of them needed this, and it's refreshing to see Clint coming out of his shell some."

"You do have me to thank for that." Tony shamelessly claimed full credit for the change in the marksman, with a wide grin at his girlfriend. "But there's one thing that I can't really figure out, and I don't think that we'll get any sort of answer. Why us? You've got two people that live and breathe SHIELD, so why would they open up to a billionaire and his gorgeous girlfriend?"

Pepper smiled. "After your rather disastrous birthday party, I started talking more to Natalie, especially since she became my assistant, and kept talking to Natasha when I found out her real name and purpose. 'Natalie' told me a few stories about a boyfriend that sounded like a raging introvert, and I suspect that she was telling me about Clint. I bet it's because we're not threatening and don't ask anything of them. At least, that's what Natasha told me, and didn't Clint talk to you one day as well? I'd think that he would have at least told you why he was telling you all sorts of sordid details about himself."

"Huh. He did say something about trust, and that I was the only one to talk to him…that day that we showed them the tower? I kinda yelled at him?" Tony rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I told him that he needed to stop being so miserable."

"You didn't." Pepper stared. "And they still moved in? I know that Natasha was pretty excited about the tower when I was talking to her about it, but she didn't want to be too far away from Clint if possible. You are a very brave man, Mr. Stark, or else very stupid and very lucky. I do worry though, about how well they're getting along with everybody else. Steve didn't seem too happy tonight."

"True," Tony frowned. "Bruce was following the Cap around, though, so I'm hoping that I can get out of a talk. Well, enough about them, Ms. Potts. Shall we return home and discuss happier things?"

The Quinjet was quiet, as Clint and Natasha flew to the Helicarrier. Natasha was the first to break the silence. "I think I liked that better than the usual."

Clint hummed, non-committedly. "It was different, that's for sure." Spotting the lights of the Helicarrier in the distance, he radioed in their call sign and position, receiving permission to land on the upper deck. "You're thinking, though."

"Steve Rogers." Natasha was blunt. "I trust him to have our backs when we're fighting, simply because that's the way he is, but we're going to have to do something about how little he trusts us the rest of the time."

Clint shook his head. "Not much we can do, unless his clearance level is increased and we can start talking to him more about SHIELD stuff. I've got a few thoughts about why he the way he is, and I talked to JARVIS about him the other night, dug up a bit more of his background. Psych says, and I agree, that Steve still hasn't fully recognized that times have changed, and is trying to hide in the past a little. Which sucks, because there's so much idealism still in him and that helps make him who he is. That idealism is actually what is causing these problems."

"There were spies and assassins back during World War Two," Natasha pointed out. "He even helped to find and stop some of them."

"That's just it, though." Clint shifted slightly in his seat. "He was _stopping_ people like us. He tracked them down and brought them in for justice, because they were working against the Allied forces. I don't think that he had much to do with the spies and assassins that were sent against the Axis forces, even though he knew they were there. I'd find it hard to believe that he didn't know that both sides were using spies and assassins, actually."

"So we're out of options."

"Maybe not, after all, Steve's a person, too." Clint was trying to stay objective. "It probably wouldn't hurt to try and talk with him. He was pretty into it that day in the gym last week."

"Listen to you," Natasha teased. "First Tony, now Steve? Will I have to come and drag you all home from a strip club one of these days?"

The look that Clint had on his face made her double over, laughing, as he brought the jet in for a smooth landing.


	11. Chapter 11

Clint whumpage ahoy. Two today, since I'll be gone for a week.

* * *

Initially, the biggest problem on this mission was boredom. Clint was able to integrate as a bartender in their chosen club, and Natasha spent most of her time floating around, looking pretty, waiting for their target. It wasn't until the fourth night that the target entered, followed by a pair of bodyguards. As one detached and walked over to the bar, Clint made sure that he was the bartender to meet him.

"Vodka. Bottle. One glass." The man grunted, putting down a folded bill. "You new here?"

"Vodka, yes sir," Clint murmured, ignoring the money. "First week here, yes sir."

A second bill was added to the first, and as Clint placed the bottle and an empty glass on the bar, he found his wrist seized and pulled across the bar. Fighting down his instinctual reaction to break the grip, he allowed the tugging to drag his upper body across as well. The bodyguard's finger poked at Clint's ear. "What is this?"

"A hearing aid, sir," Clint said, anger starting to build. "And if sir would be so kind as to release me?"

The man's only response was to grab Clint's chin and turn his head. "Two! Very well, deaf man." A third bill was tossed down as he released Clint. "And two whiskeys."

Clint straightened, lightly rubbing his wrist. "Two whiskeys, yes sir."

As the bodyguard walked off, tray of drinks in his hand, Clint rubbed at his ear, hoping that the hearing aid was seated correctly and nothing had been damaged when it had been poked. He'd take a better look tonight, when he returned to the small apartment SHIELD had provided for their use.

When Clint left that night, it was with a headache. His hearing aid had been poked at several times by the bodyguard, and the positioning was off enough that he was getting odd sounds and feedback at random times. He was glad, now, that all he had to do was be Natasha's backup; he was kicking himself for not testing his different hearing aids in different situations. Slamming the apartment door shut, he sat down heavily in a chair and clawed at his ear, pulling the offending device out.

"Report." Sitwell wasn't doing much, spending his days lurking around the city or holed up in the apartment, doing paperwork. Clint had to wonder if part of being a handler was the ability to not be bored; Coulson had rarely left his spot on past missions, also. If Clint was in their position, he would have probably started breaking things after a day.

"Contact made. Like the reports said, bodyguards drink whiskey, subject drinks vodka. They start off with the expensive stuff, don't notice when they're switched over to the cheap. Bodyguards only drink lightly compared to the target, but still don't appear all that sober. Natasha walked by them a few times and they did take a few good looks at her, but no idea if they'll bite."

"And what about that?" Sitwell asked, pointing at the hearing aid in Clint's hand.

"Bodyguard was curious, never learned how to look without touching. Several times."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I should be able to fix this; the docs gave me instructions if it was for something simple."

The target group returned to Clint's bar several times over the next week, and the consistency in their routine was slightly reassuring to the SHIELD agents, since it appeared that they had been successful in their covers. The one bodyguard persisted in poking at his ears, and one hearing aid was damaged to the point where Clint simply decided to go with one; having a headache at the end of each night was becoming frustrating. He was able to adapt slightly, keeping his deaf side to the wall whenever possible.

As he left the bar one night, he heard heavy footsteps coming up from behind, and a hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

"Deaf man!" Clint froze, recognizing the voice. "Come, we have a party without a bartender!"

Without being given a chance to say anything, Clint was steered to a car that pulled up to the curb and shoved in. Mentally crossing his fingers, Clint sat back and counted what he did have on him, hoping that they'd leave him his cell phone and not frisk him. This sort of situation was very much Natasha's deal, not his, and he was reassured in the thought that when he didn't return, Sitwell and Natasha would start tracking him down.

Either the bodyguards and their boss were very stupid, or overly confident in their security, because they let Clint in with only the most cursory of pat-downs, missing his knives, which were not very well hidden. They even left him his cell phone. The party itself was long, and Clint was kept busy, but eventually everybody started to trickle out. Clint stayed at the bar, silently wiping it down with a damp towel, eying the remaining people in the room and calculating odds and options.

When the only people left were the bodyguards, the target, and a lady in a rumpled dress passed out on a couch, Clint made his move. Picking up a knife that he'd been using to cut limes, he held it flat against his arm and walked over to the men. "Would sirs like anything else to drink?"

The blurry eyes of the boss stared up at him. "Whazzat? No. Wait. Yes. Gimme one of those things."

"Very well, sir." As Clint turned, he transformed the simple turn into a lunge at the closest bodyguard, the one that kept calling him "deaf man." Clint aimed for the man's eyes, and the element of surprise allowed him to make contact, leaving the other man screaming on the floor.

He lost that knife when he threw it at the other bodyguard, hitting him – somehow, since the knife was poorly balanced – in the shoulder, making him drop his gun. He lost one of his own when he threw it at the boss, who was attempting to run for the door. Clinically, Clint watched as the man fell, screaming, the knife sticking out of his back. After that, it was a scuffle. Clint still had one knife and the advantage of being fully sober, but the other man had size and adrenaline on his side and was not nearly as inebriated as Clint had hoped he'd be.

He lost that knife when the other man grabbed his wrist and arm, a vicious twist flipping him around and a sharp pain told him that he'd be a while healing. He had one more knife, but it was not easy to get to from his position on the floor. Luckily, he had managed to land near the dropped gun. Grabbing it with his good hand, Clint gritted his teeth against the pain as he rolled over, shooting the bodyguard in the head, then following up with a matching shot to the other bodyguard.

Pushing himself up, Clint quickly checked his target. He must have hit an artery or something else vitally important; the man was dead. The woman on the couch had somehow slept through everything; Clint suspected that she had been partaking in some of the drugs that he'd seen going around, but he tied her up, just to be safe. Returning to the bar, he picked up his cellphone and dialed a number from memory.

"Hey dad. Keys are missing, I need a ride. Come pick me up? I'm at Bernard's." Translation: target dealt with, pick-up and clean-up needed. Mentally kicking himself about not trying to bring a gun and going out half-deaf, he slumped down on a couch, hoping that Sitwell and Natasha got there before he started really feeling his injuries.

* * *

Clint was flat on his back on the floor of the Quinjet as it lifted off from the Helicarrier, arm in a sling and a brand new pair of hearing aids in his ears. The doctors had pointed out that for pure downtime and relaxation purposes, the type that he'd been so against was really the most comfortable of all the options, and look, here was a pair all ready for him. He'd been so drugged up that he had simply taken them, put them in, and then fallen asleep without a word.

He didn't open his eyes as he felt, more than heard, Natasha sit down next to his head. "Riot act later, please, Tasha?" He mumbled. "Won't 'member right now."

He sighed in pleasure as her fingers started carding through his hair. "You idiot," was all that she said, a phrase that he'd heard quite a bit in a variety of languages, tones and inflections since she'd come bursting through the door and seen the blood and bodies. The rest of the short flight passed in silence; it had been recommended that the two remain on the Helicarrier, but Natasha had expressed her desire to return to the tower and sleep in a much more comfortable bed. Clint had been unable to make a decision either way, so he just followed Natasha.

Tony and Pepper were relaxing together, watching a movie when JARVIS paused it. "Excuse me sir, but Agents Barton and Romanoff have returned."

"Already?" Tony asked, with a glance at Pepper. "Thought they'd be longer."

Before anything else could be said, the elevator doors slid open and Clint stumbled out, apparently directed by Natasha. Without a word, Tony stood up and moved over to the pair, providing extra support. They got as far as the couch where Tony helped Clint lay down, removing his shoes as Natasha covered him with a blanket. A silent jerk of Natasha's head had Pepper and Tony walking into the kitchen with her.

"We're back," she simply said, as she went to the fridge. "The hawk has a broken wing, but it will heal, the doctors had to make sure it was starting to heal correctly and finish the field repairs on the rest of him, so he is sleeping off the drugs. We were successful, although not in the methods we were planning on using."

Looking between the two women, Tony had the impression that he wasn't needed or wanted. Natasha watched as he kissed Pepper on the cheek and returned to the other room, restarting the movie.

"He was very lucky," Natasha's voice startled Pepper. "One of his hearing aids was damaged beyond our ability to repair it, and so he was using only one. He also brought knives to a gun fight, and didn't call for backup before he started fighting. The idiot. Poison would have been easier and safer."

Pepper hadn't known what to expect when the two agents returned, but this was not it, with one drugged up asleep on the couch and the other calmly eating all of the yogurt in the fridge. "Are you okay?"

Natasha shrugged. "Yes. After all, I wasn't the one who was fighting. Angry, yes. Upset, yes. Okay? Most certainly." She shook her head. "Bruises, lacerations, and a fracture, that's it. Had he been truly hurt, then I would not have been okay."

"Oh." Pepper leaned against the counter. "Anything else we should know right now?"

"Let him sleep a little bit longer out here, and then he should move to a real bed, because he can get funny when he has decent amounts of sedatives and painkillers in his system." Natasha glanced at the clock, then out in the other room.

Something that Natasha had said was making Pepper think. "Are you angry at Clint?"

"He was an idiot," Natasha replied, moving from yogurt to ice cream. "I was supposed to be the one going in, he was supposed to be my backup. But, he saw an opportunity and he took it. The final result was we had been aiming for; it just wasn't quite as elegant as we'd been hoping. We're going to have words, when he's sober, but he already knows what went wrong. There wasn't anything that he could have done differently."

Shaking her head, Pepper changed the subject. "I have some time free this weekend. Would you like to go and get lunch and do some shopping?"

Thinking, Natasha nodded. "Saturday, then?" She looked at the empty ice cream carton and sighed. "I always crave dairy after I get back from anyplace hot. But, I am going to borrow Tony and move Clint."

Pepper glanced out of the kitchen. Seeing both men asleep, she asked "how funny does he get? Would it be easier to just let him sleep out there?"

Natasha followed the older woman's gaze. A small smile ghosting around the edges of her lips, she replied "he acts like the little child that he never had a chance to be. It will either be very funny, or we will want to lock him in a closet."


	12. Chapter 12

Nightmares are never fun.

* * *

Clint woke slowly. Keeping his eyes shut, he assessed what he could about his current situation: dull ache in his arm, general stiffness and soreness, head on something other than a pillow, people moving around. The fact that he could hear them meant that he hadn't taken his hearing aids out; there was sound from all sides, but Clint couldn't remember just when he had changed them. Feeling his ear, he realized that he'd been given a new pair, and for the first time since he'd gotten his hearing aids the itching that had always seemed to be present was gone. Opening his eyes, he realized that he was on a couch in the Avenger's Tower, head pillowed on Natasha's lap. Feeling hungry, he sat up and looked around. Natasha was asleep, head resting on her arm. Tony was slumped in a chair, also asleep. Pepper walked in from the kitchen holding a mug. "Hey," Clint said, sitting up, shoving the blanket covering him to the floor.

"Morning," Pepper smiled. "Welcome back. How are you feeling?"

"Hungry. Curious." Clint shrugged. "Wondering if Natasha drank all the milk." He stood up, covering Natasha with the blanket and started to walk towards the kitchen, tugging at the strap of the sling where it crossed his shoulder.

"The others are in there, eating breakfast," Pepper warned, turning to follow him.

"Thanks," Clint said, without pausing. He entered the kitchen and, without a word to the two men at the table, poured a cup of coffee, carried it to the table, then went to the fridge and looked inside. "The wench," he mumbled. "Left the milk, but ate the yogurt." Shrugging, he grabbed an apple and sat down.

"Welcome back," Bruce said. "You okay?" Clint shrugged but didn't answer, taking a long drink of coffee.

Steve frowned, seeing the sling and a bruise on Clint's cheek. Opening his mouth, he was interrupted by the man he was watching. "Don't. Ask. You won't like the answer. We went, we came back. I'm hungry."

Scowling, Clint put the apple on the table and reached up, removing his hearing aids. With an ease that suggested familiarity of only having one functioning arm, Clint tucked the apple and electronics into his sling and stood up, holding his mug, and left the room without another word.

"That was…odd," Bruce said, staring at the door. "I wonder when they got back."

"A few hours ago," Pepper said, sitting down at the table. "I think it's best if he's left alone for now."

"I was only going to ask how he was doing," Steve felt hurt by the overt rejection from the archer. "And ask if he needed anything."

Bruce looked at Steve, eyebrows raised. "Really." Finishing his juice, he stood up and walked to the sink, rinsing out his glass. "He's probably feeling pretty stiff and sore, especially with a hurt arm, who knows how many bruises, and sleeping on the couch last night. Plus, pain and different painkillers can make people act differently than they normally would."

"I knew that!" Steve had a mix of pleasure and irritation on his face. "I just didn't expect it from him."

Pepper looked out into the other room. Natasha and Tony were still asleep, with the only sign of Clint being his boots still sitting by the couch. Turning back to the others, she sipped at her drink. "Natasha said that he might act like this. Just let him be, and you might want to stop talking about Clint for now. It's rude." She turned to Steve. "What were your plans for today, Steve?"

* * *

Clint's first stop was his room, where he tried to keep himself occupied by watching TV. Frustrated when that couldn't keep his attention, he grabbed his laptop and went to the last place that anybody would think to look for him – Tony's lab. He knew that he was sulking and that he probably owed several people apologies, but he couldn't find it in himself to care just yet. He found a corner that he could watch the door from, and sat back against the wall, propping the computer against his knees. At the very least, he could start on his report. Typing one handed was difficult but doable, and the extra challenge allowed for a welcome level of distraction from the various aches he was feeling as well as the slight hung-over feeling of having been given sedatives and narcotics. He hated that feeling, almost as much as he hated getting injured or ending up in Medical; it usually took somebody else to drag him in there. His early experiences with the medical staff had become SHIELD legend, and they didn't let him forget it.

He was about a quarter of the way through his initial draft when a chat box popped up on his screen. "Begging your pardon, Agent Barton, but might I offer my assistance?" JARVIS.

"How so, JARVIS?" Clint tugged at the strap on his sling, trying to keep it from cutting into his neck too much.

"I can take dictation, if you would like," the AI typed. "Additionally, Mr. Stark keeps some painkillers here, as I have observed that you have not taken any in the past eight hours." A robot rolled over to Clint, a bottle of aspirin held in its clamp.

"Alright, mother," Clint said, waving off the robot. "Lets see if this actually works."

Surprisingly to Clint, it had, and with JARVIS's help, Clint had finished one draft of his report, and was playing a game before starting on a second draft when the chat box popped up. "Agent Romanoff has asked where you are. Shall I inform her of your current location?"

"Sure," Clint nodded, going back to the game. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement by the door, and looked up as Natasha walked in. "That was fast."

"Agent Romanoff was already on this floor when she asked for my assistance," the AI wrote. "She is also asking how you are doing."

Clint looked up at Natasha. "I'm doing fine. Little stiff. Sorry, don't have my ears in."

She sat down on the floor next to him, nodding, holding out a mug and the case that he stored his hearing aids in. He took the mug, taking a deep drink of coffee, placing the mug on the floor.

"I don't know if I can do this anymore, Nat." Clint sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. "Sure, we're training for this stuff, but that one guy nearly got me." He felt her nudge his shoulder, and turned to look at her, then closed his eyes and leaned his head against her shoulder. He felt her sigh, and she wrapped one arm around him, giving him a brief hug, before pushing him upright, tapping the top of his head in admonishment. Opening his eyes, he turned to look at her.

She grabbed his free hand and placed the case in it, before pointing at the screen. "That's not you, Clint. Put your ears in and let's go upstairs, have some more to drink." Getting a look at the sour look on his face as he stared at the screen, she continued, "the docs gave you so much drugs that I'm surprised you woke up so early. Normally you aren't. So cooperate or I'll have to," she cut off, shaking her head.

"Do what?" He dropped the case in his lap.

"Something. I may just punch you in the face, it's worked before."

Clint grinned as he took another drink. "Rather you didn't, you've a hard punch." A nudge in his side had him looking at Natasha, who was holding out a SHIELD prescription bottle. Taking it, he rotated it until he could see the label. A big bottle of Tylenol with codeine; sometimes it seemed like the medical staff handed it out like candy. He took two, swallowing them with the last of the coffee, keeping his eyes on his partner.

"Came prepared," he lipread, as she pointed at the computer. He turned his gaze back to the computer screen. "I need more sleep, Tony wants to work in here without any 'stubborn archers who won't listen to others' hanging around, and _your_ instructions were to spend today resting, not doing paperwork."

Clint shook his head.

"You aren't expected to talk to anybody, or even be in the same room." Natasha crossed her arms. "And you're acting like a two-year-old. Don't make me hit you, because you know I won't fight fair." One finger was tapping, a sign of irritation.

"I can kick and scream?" Clint smiled hopefully. "And you never do." He stared at the box in his lap. "I'm still not happy."

Natasha scowled, hitting his good arm. "Hearing aids. Now. I don't want to keep on talking through JARVIS."

Rolling his eyes, Clint complied. They were the new ones, and he fumbled slightly as he looped the batteries behind his ears. Looking at Natasha, he asked "better?"

"Much. Now, you are coming upstairs." She picked up the pill bottle from where he'd dropped it on the floor, standing up. "Up!"

"No."

A syringe was dangled in front of his face. "I _will_ put you back to sleep, Barton, then tie you down until you are yourself again, no matter how you kick and scream."

Clint looked up at her, putting a pitiful look on his face. "But what about my arm?" Picking up his computer and mug with his free hand, he ignored the threat of the syringe; not only was it empty, but it didn't look the same as the ones that the nurses normally used. It was a lot smaller, for one, and the markings on the barrel were completely different.

"What about it. Get your ass up and moving!" She shoved the pill bottle into a pocket, then reached down with her free hand and grabbed at his hair. "Up!"

Before she could get a good grip, Clint carefully stood up. Catching Natasha in a brief hug, he smiled at her. "Thanks. And Tasha? Syringe threat is useless. It's empty."

She rolled her eyes, taking the computer from him and turning to leave the room. "I can only wish that you didn't react like this, but because I know that I can be just as bad, I let it be. Plus, sometimes you are actually funny." She turned, pointing at him with the syringe. "But next time, I _will_ lock you in a room." It was an old threat, one that had been given to him and by him many times before, and one that they both ignored.

* * *

Natasha kept his laptop when she escorted Clint to his room, so he lay down on the couch to take another nap. The one downside to his bed, he realized, was that there were times it would be difficult to climb up. Sighing when he couldn't fall asleep, he knocked on the connecting door to Natasha's room.

She opened it, staring at him, then nodded. She had been watching TV, and he curled up next to her on the couch. He fell asleep soon after.

He woke up, gasping, after a nightmare. Natasha was still there, and she glanced over. "Did I?" he asked.

"No," she signed. "Are you going to sleep more?"

"Not after that. What time is it?"

"Noon. Did you want lunch? I'm heading out for a bit."

Clint shook his head. "No, I'm good. Thanks, though." Nightmares usually took away his ability to sleep more, and his appetite, depending on what he was dreaming about. He stood up, then in a move that surprised the both of them, leaned over and kissed Natasha on the cheek, something that he hadn't done in years. "Thanks." He left the room before she could respond, closing the door with a firm click...then hiding in the bathroom until he was sure Natasha was gone.


	13. Chapter 13

Steve gets a few hard truths, and Clint is a bad boy. Don't mix prescription meds and alcohol.

* * *

Clint was stretched out on the couch in his room that afternoon, channel surfing (he'd never admit to spending a couple hours watching an ice skating competition), when JARVIS flashed an alert on the TV screen. "Steve Rogers is standing outside your door, knocking. He has been there for three minutes."

Clint tossed the remote control down and grabbed for his hearing aids, putting one in as he walked to the door. "Hey Steve. Sorry, I didn't hear you knocking; it's safer to use the doorbell. What do you need?"

The other man looked uncomfortable as he asked "can I come in? I think we need to talk, and I probably owe you an apology."

Clint shrugged, turning around and leaving the door open, while adjusting the second hearing aid. "Sure. Have a seat. Want something to drink? I've got water, Gatorade, some soda."

"Gatorade, please." Steve sat down in a chair, glancing around. "You've a nice place."

"Natasha." Clint said, handing a bottle of Gatorade to Steve and sitting down with a can of soda. "She actually did a lot of the design work in here, I just added some personal stuff." He turned the TV off. "So, what's up?"

Steve delayed responding, taking a deep drink. "I need to apologize for what I said before you left. It was pointed out to me that I was wrong, and that I was judging you and Natasha through a very narrow lens. It's still difficult for me to remember that this isn't the forties anymore, but an entirely different century."

Clint cocked his head to one side. "That's not what is bugging you, though."

"No, it isn't." Steve looked frustrated. "What you and Natasha do is. I don't _like_ the idea of spying or killing in cold blood. It's…wrong. People should be tried by a jury of their peers and sent to prison if they're guilty, or set free if they're innocent. And spying…why not just _ask_ for the information? Why lie to people and trick them into giving up their secrets?" He ran one hand through his hair. "And it bothers me that I'm bothered by it."

"All I can say is try not to be." Clint stood up and shut the door, then returned to the couch, turning off the TV. "But that's impossible. Here's the thing, Steve. What I do for SHIELD is against people that would either bribe their way out of punishment, wouldn't get caught in the first place, or are in places that don't have the same form of legal system as we do in the US. Our last assignment was in one of those places where he would never have been brought to justice using traditional means, and was actively working against world security and that of the US. The target's job? He was the head of an organization that sold weapons on the black market, smuggled people and when those people couldn't pay, either forced them into slavery or killed them and tossed their bodies where they'd never be found, and did some other stuff that would give you nightmares. It gave _me_ a few, and I'll probably have one or two more. General tip, if you hear me screaming in my sleep, don't wake me up. I sleep with knives and I _will_ hurt you. Hell, I'd probably take out the Hulk if I was woken up from my nightmares. Same with Natasha, and we have nightmares more often than you'd think; it comes with some of the things that we've seen and have had to do, and we've both got forms of PTSD. You'd probably know it better as shell shock or combat stress. But, back to our mission. This guy never got his own hands dirty, but he directed other people to do everything. It isn't like we're going out and killing _kids_."

"But what about the international courts?" Steve pressed. "I know that they're out there."

"For crimes against humanity, performed by political leaders. War crimes. Genocide." Clint took a drink. "Leaders who broke the trust put in them by their civilian population which resulted in a loss of life that the international community could not ignore. And even then, not all bad leaders are caught and tried, and they really aren't in SHIELD's jurisdiction. I want to turn this around on you. What is SHIELD's mission?"

"I…don't know." Steve admitted. "All that I really know is that Howard Stark helped found it and they tried to use the Tesseract to build weapons, like HYDRA did, and it stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."

Clint groaned, dropping his head back. "They didn't tell you _anything_. I am going to _have_ to talk to Hill about this tomorrow." Sitting back up, he stared at Steve. "In the forties, after you were lost in the Arctic, Howard Stark and some others came up with the idea of an agency to defend against groups like HYDRA, who were a bit more powerful than what could be handled by the military of any single nation and who could be classified as more terroristic than militaristic. SHIELD is, on paper, technically a US government organization, although Fury reports to the World Security Council, which may or may not be all American, nobody knows. I actually suspect that it's more United Nations-run, since I've come across some Brits, French, and Germans, but the leadership is kept compartmentalized and we aren't told everything, in case we get compromised. I just know I'm a government employee, based on what my paychecks and tax forms say. With me?"

Steve nodded. "How did they get to where they are today?"

Clint shrugged, reaching up to adjust his sling. "I don't know. And I don't really care all that much. Compared to the average person you see walking around the Helicarrier or any base, I'm pretty high up in the hierarchy, but in all reality, I'm not _that_ high, for all that there are really only about twenty, twenty-five people who can give me orders, not quite sure of the actual amount."

"What about the spying, then? I've heard things." Steve still looked upset, but settled further back in his chair.

"I'm going to turn this one around on you, Steve." Clint responded. "World War Two. You were going after all those HYDRA bases in Europe, doing USO tours, and you even ferreted out a few spies yourself. How did you find all those bases and spies?"

"The first one I went to had a map on the wall, I went off my memory. The spies just didn't act quite right, and I was given reports about how somebody may not have been who he said he was. How is that the same thing?"

"It's not the same thing, exactly, but it's close. You went someplace that was dangerous, found information, and brought it back out, without a lot of military support. We, or rather Natasha usually, goes in, guns blazing, and gets information. Her weaponry, though, includes a pretty dress, language skills, and the ability to think on her feet and blend into many different environments. Mine includes, well, not pretty dresses, but all the rest of it. I just spent time as a bartender, for example. By working that way, a lot of bloodshed is avoided. Also, spying allows us to track down any potential spies that are working against us. JARVIS, can you pull up some information on the OSS, CIA, and American spies during and after the Second World War and send it to Steve's computer?"

"It would be my pleasure, Agent Barton." The AI replied. "Captain Rogers, would you rather me print the information out or have it on your computer?"

"Print it out, please." Steve wasn't quite sure what to think. "Look, I'm just a kid from Brooklyn. I didn't even want to join the Army to fight Nazis, I just didn't like the bullying."

"Not much of a kid anymore," Clint noted, "but we haven't been very fair to you. Spying and assassinations have histories that are as old as civilizations, and idealists like yourself have always had problems with it. And yes, you are an idealist, which I hope doesn't get beaten out of you like it did the rest of us. Unfortunately, for the purposes of security and keeping the bullies down, both those spying and assassinations do end up needing to happen, and there was an expectation that you'd just roll with it. For that, I'm sorry. I also need to apologize for earlier and how I acted."

Steve waved it off. "Dr. Banner explained why he thought you were acting that way. I should have remembered that a lot of soldiers were like that when they were injured and had been given morphine. I was curious if you were okay, and if there was anything that we could do for you."

"Yeah…" Clint drew the word out. "Bruises, some stitches, busted my arm. It'll all heal, it's all happened before, and it'll happen again. It's just my line of work. Only thing that you guys can do is be a pair of hands if Natasha isn't around and I need some help, and generally stay out of my way the first few hours, until the drugs are out of my system. I'll come to you. Natasha should have brought me in here or even left me back at SHIELD, but for whatever reason we ended up out there."

"Can I ask another question? And maybe have another Gatorade?"

Clint waved his good hand at the minifridge. "Help yourself. And you can ask anything, I just may not answer."

Steve stood up, walking over to the fridge that was neatly tucked under a shelf. "How did you end up at SHIELD? Why not, I don't know, compete professionally in archery or join the military?"

Clint took a deep breath, exhaling noisily. "I…" he started, "JARVIS, time?"

"It is 4:32 PM, Agent Barton."

"Close enough. I need a drink to talk about this with you." Clint stood up, grabbing his jacket from where it was draped over the back of the couch. "Coming? You may not be able to get drunk, but you can at least enjoy the taste of a beer or two." He walked over to a door that Steve had thought was a closet, opened it, and leaned through. "Tasha, going out with Rogers. I've my phone, be back for dinner."

Steve heard a query in some language that wasn't English, and Clint's response, then Clint leaned back as a shoe came flying through the door. As the archer laughed, Steve walked over, picked it up, and looked through the door into what was obviously Natasha's room. "Here's your shoe back." He dropped it on the floor. "Barton, I'll meet you at the elevator."

As the two men walked down the street, they kept the conversation light. Clint asked questions about Steve's art, and what he was doing to keep busy, Steve was pleased to have found somebody that could at least pretend interest in what he was doing and didn't walk around with an odd look on his face at the topics brought up. They entered a bar that Steve had never seen before, but Clint was greeted by name by the woman behind the bar. Clint held up two fingers, then led Steve to a booth located in the back, one that offered privacy but also visibility of the rest of the bar. He waited until the bartender brought over two bottles of beer before talking.

"I was never eligible to join the military," he started. "I only went to school until I was ten, and these days you need a high school diploma. And now, I'm too old and classified as disabled, unless I get a special dispensation, and honestly, I don't want that, I've been working for SHIELD too long. My position in life right now is a good, comfortable fit." He paused. "Actually, if I was ever given the option to leave SHIELD in the past, I'd've said no then, too. As soon as I joined and got through the first few months, the only way I'd've left would have been in a body bag. Still is."

Steve watched as the other man obviously thought through what he wanted to say. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No, you don't trust us – me. Having a bit of knowledge may help you out on that level." Clint shook his head, obviously rejecting Steve's offer. "So, why didn't I go professional. Simple. No money, and once you start getting good on the professional circuit, your background comes into play. My background is not pretty, and there would have been no way to clean it up, to cover up a criminal record."

"Criminal?" Steve frowned.

"Yeah, breaking and entering, theft, nothing major, but still not what you want to see in a professional athlete. My juvenile record could have been expunged, but it wasn't, and everything past eighteen is a matter of public record and anybody who really looked would have seen that I spent two years in juvie."

"But, why?"

"Why does any homeless, starving person steal, Steve?" Clint asked. "I had no real future, I had nobody to count on, nobody to trust. So _you_ tell _me_ why."

Steve felt shaken. He hadn't done his research on his teammates beyond what they could offer in the present, so he didn't have any idea that Clint's background was something other than what Steve had thought – the super-solder had created in his mind fantasies about how his teammates had grown up with loving families, the life that he wished he'd had sometimes. The realization made him wonder about the rest of the people he knew.

"What _is_ your background, then?" Steve leaned forward in curiosity.

Clint only responded by waving at the bartender, who brought over another beer and two glasses of water, leaving with an encouraging smile. After she had left, Clint focused on the wall behind Steve's right ear, saying in a flat voice, "My parents died. I was sent to an orphanage. I joined the circus. My brother died. I was a petty thief. I joined SHIELD."

"Oh." Steve didn't know what to say. "I...didn't know."

"That was the point." Clint was still speaking in an emotionless voice. "What _you_ don't know can't hurt _me_." He finished his second bottle of beer, and reached for the water. "And now you know, and I'm praying like hell that you use the information as it was meant to be used, because I _will_ take anybody out who even _thinks _of blackmail or anything like that. My sniper rifle has a lot more range than my bow, and you'll be dead by the time you hear it fire."

Steve stored Clint's statement away to think about later, following Clint's example and drinking his beer. "This is good!"

"Yeah, they have a contract with a local microbrewery, so you don't get the big name stuff here. Phil introduced me to this place a long time ago, and Natasha and I come here on a pretty regular basis when we're in town. Girl at the bar is an old friend from school, she owns the place. Bought it for cheap after the fighting with the Chitauri spooked the previous owner and nearly destroyed the building. She's married, her wife works in the Bronx at the zoo." Clint visibly relaxed with the change in subject. "The wedding was pretty wild...Natasha was best man, and I still don't know how they got her to agree. I think they slipped something into her drink when they asked her, and then I didn't let her back out."

"What about you?"

"I didn't want to be in the wedding party, even though they asked, since I didn't know if I'd be around or not and I don't do public stuff. I went as a guest, and they got me drunk enough to give a speech at the reception. I still don't remember what I said. Like I said, it was wild."

"Huh." Steve glanced around the bar. "So..." he searched for something else to talk about that would keep Clint talking, gaze returning to the hearing aids.

Clint smiled, a bitter twist to his lips. "It's okay to ask. No, I don't like the fact that I'm deaf now, I'm still getting used to it and will probably be getting used to this for the rest of my life. My ability to read lips has improved a whole lot – the couple at the bar is arguing about their three-year-old's desire to," he squinted slightly, "shave the cat and teach it to jump through hoops? Huh. Kids. I had learned the basics of sign language when I first joined SHIELD, but not using it a lot meant that I had a few refresher classes to go through. If you want to learn, you can. It does help out in the field."

"What about the rumor that you're getting something from Tony?"

"True, partially. There are these hearing aids that connect directly to a nerve in your head that actually work pretty well for the type of hearing loss that I've got, but the problem is that the microphone for it is pretty big and exposed and there were too many risks involved in going that route when it came to mission security. What Tony came up with and the doctors modified is essentially taking what goes inside the head as it is, changing the microphone, and adding in a couple more things for communication purposes and a way to avoid needing a microphone all the time, but that won't work anyplace other than the Tower and SHIELD bases. Testing should be done in the next couple days, then I'll have to decide if I'm going to go through with it."

"But how does it all work?"

Clint shrugged. "Computers. Rest of the time, I've got these." He pointed at his ear.

"Huh." Steve finished his drink. "Think you're nuts, but I also knew Tony's dad. They're a lot alike, if you can believe that."

Clint nodded as he stood up, pulling out his wallet. Steve followed him to the bar, where Clint handed over a folded bill and a business card and kissed the bartender on the cheek. "Wendy, Natasha was wondering when you and Tanya had a free evening. There's an exhibit at the Met that you two would love."

"Barton, you know that for you and Nat, we'd show up at three AM." Wendy laughed. "If you can make it tomorrow night, we'll spring for dinner at that little hole-in-the-wall you two love so much." She winked at Steve. "He's a hottie, where'd you find him?"

"Alaska, if you can believe it. He was being raised by Bigfoot, so he isn't up on modern society much. We're just thankful that he's housebroken." Clint laughed. "But I have to get him back to his keepers before Tasha comes and drags me off. We'll talk more tomorrow, that's got my new number on it, and e-mail always works."

"I'll call you when Stephanie gets here." Wendy shocked Steve by grabbing Clint's head and kissing him on the lips, hard. "And you'd better come up with a better story about why you've got a sling, that bruise on your cheek...and hearing aids. I'm not going to buy underground cage fighting this time."

Clint grinned and nodded, as he turned to leave. "Underground cage fighting and congenital hearing loss?"

Wendy just gave him a look.

"I'll work on something."

"What was that?" Steve was shocked by the interaction he had just witnessed. "I thought you and Natasha were stepping out...and she's married...and you really didn't have any friends..."

"And she's very, very much a lesbian." Clint nodded as the men walked back to the Tower. "Wendy was a classmate of mine in college, who saw through most of my excuses, but still doesn't know the reality. We ended up in a lot of the same classes, because she was studying part-time. We started studying together when I was around, and she became as much of a friend as I let her, even though I didn't, couldn't, tell her anything. Wendy just likes to play with people's heads. And me and Natasha? Sure seems it, but no. There's something about having to do field surgery on each other that knocks any chance of romance right out the window. She's my other half. Simple as that."

"Most people would call that love and start asking about if you've set a date." Steve pointed out.

"Most people haven't been through what we've been through," Clint countered, "and most people can fuck off."

"Then," Steve started.

"Steve," Clint interrupted, "this is one of those things that you should not focus on why or why not, just accept that however screwed up it may sound, it works."

"Can I ask something else, then?"

"Sure." Clint looked around, then kept heading back towards the Tower.

"You said that you have nightmares? About what?"

Clint sighed, tilting his head back and staring at the sky, hand on the door. "Of course," he muttered. "I'm going to choose not to answer that question, because you're not cleared for half of it, and the rest...I don't talk about."


	14. Chapter 14

An idea of timing appears! Also, as Clintasha-y as this'll be getting.

* * *

Steve wasn't quite sure just what he wanted to think the next day, when he was requested to report to the SHIELD Manhattan facility with Clint and Natasha. He certainly didn't expect to be left cooling his heels outside of a conference room as the two assassins were put through a debriefing with Sitwell, Hill, _and_ Fury, but after about an hour, he stood up and started wandering the halls.

"Excuse me, sir?" Some random person in a blue SHIELD uniform came jogging up. "Captain Rogers? Agent Hill is requesting that you return to conference room A, they're ready for you."

"Thanks," Steve muttered, retracing his steps down the hallway. Spotting Clint and Natasha leaning against the wall next to the door, he mouthed "you okay?"

Clint nodded, opening the door. "Talk later. Smile, you're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. We'll see you later."

When Steve left the room an hour later, he was feeling confused. Between Fury, Hill, and Sitwell, he had been told a lot about SHIELD, but he still felt like there was quite a bit that he wasn't being told. Suppressing his irritation at the lack of transparency, Steve looked around for Clint and Natasha. Not seeing them, he waited until Sitwell left the room. "Agent Sitwell."

"Captain Rogers." the man nodded. "Need something?"

"Yeah. Do you know where Agents Barton and Romanoff are?"

"No clue. Let me call Natasha." Steve watched as Sitwell pulled out his phone and dialed, having a brief conversation. "They're at Medical, I'll head over there with you."

"Thanks." Steve was quiet for a minute, following Sitwell. "You aren't saying everything, are you."

"No, we're not." Sitwell nodded. "Nobody around here knows everything, with very few exceptions, and you're not one of them. I'm not one of them. You just learn to deal with it. In here." He led Steve through a door, and nodded at the man dressed in white who was walking over to meet them. "Barton and Romanoff?"

"Lemme see if you're allowed in." The man nodded, walking to a door. He stuck his head in after a knock. "Hey, Sitwell and some civilian? Okay." He turned around. "Go on in."

It was an exam room, and Clint was sitting on the table, shirtless, swinging his legs. Natasha was sitting in a chair, and the doctor was on a stool. Looking up, Natasha stood, joining Clint on the table. Sitwell claimed the chair, leaving Steve to stand by the door awkwardly.

"It's a go." Clint appeared calm. "Three days." He looked at Steve. "Won't be of any use for a few weeks, not that I was of much use now. Blessing in disguise. I've got some stuff to do, I'll be back later tonight." Glancing at Sitwell, he continued, "desk duty again." he made a face. He noticed Steve staring, and grabbed at his t-shirt, raising it in front of his chest. "_Begging_ your pardon, sir!" he exclaimed in a falsetto voice. "I don't even know you!"

A warning glance from Natasha kept Steve from saying anything negative. "Not a problem, especially since you're already hurt. Want me to let Tony know?"

"Nah, I'll tell him." Clint pulled on his t-shirt, before jumping off the table. "'scuse me." He pushed past Steve and left the room.

The doctor just sighed. "Agent Romanoff, can you make sure that he gets the information that he so glibly just walked off without, again?"

Natasha nodded, used to her partner's antics. "Would you also e-mail it to him? That may work better"

* * *

Natasha woke, sitting straight up in bed, breathing heavily, hearing Clint's calm voice coming from across the room. "Tasha...Tasha...wake up, Tasha, it's just a dream...come on, Natasha, wake up..." she sat up in bed, glancing at the door. Clint was leaning against the doorframe, looking sleepy. "JARVIS woke me up. You were getting loud."

"Oh." Natasha realized that it _must_ have been bad, for Clint to only be wearing pajama pants; he never went around without a shirt on, in order to hide the scars that covered his torso. She was intimate with some of them, having created them herself out in the field, but others she only knew about from Clint's own nightmares. She could now hear the knocking on the door. "Somebody's knocking."

"I'll go tell them to go away. Be back."

"Wait!" she blurted out, only to realize that he didn't have his hearing aids in when he didn't turn back around, only continuing to the door.

"JARVIS, who is out there?" she whispered, drawing her knees to her chest and leaning back against the headboard, face feeling wet.

"Agent Barton, Mr. Stark, Miss Potts, and Dr. Banner. Captain Rogers is in his room still, although it appears that he is aware of what is going on."

"We heard screaming, everything okay?" Tony, and a small mumble that Natasha couldn't make out.

"Yeah. Go back to sleep, we've got it handled." Natasha could just imagine Clint, standing firmly in the doorway, arms crossed across his chest. "Bruce, what? You have to speak to my face, I don't have hearing aids in."

Another mumble. Banner normally talked pretty quietly; if he thought she was trying to go back to sleep, then he'd be even quieter. Now she was glad that the only light that was on was coming from Clint's room.

"I'm a fighter, Bruce, not a lover. Of _course_ I have scars. Go back to bed, all of you. We've a long day tomorrow." A click indicated that Clint had shut the door. "JARVIS, that door, and my door, are not to open until 7 am, no matter what anybody says. We're sleeping." He reappeared in her bedroom door. "Scale?"

Natasha flicked on the bedside lamp. He was able to read her lips in the low light, but it was always easier with more. The tears still streaming down her face told him everything, and he quickly moved across the room, sitting next to her on the bed. "What about?" he kept his eyes pinned on her face.

"Loki," she whispered. "You. Coulson. Everything."

"Oh, Tasha," his arm wrapped around her shoulders, comforting in its strength, and he pulled her against his side. She let him, tucking herself closer, head on his shoulder, taking comfort in his warmth and presence. "Come on. You can't sleep in here tonight."

She let herself be pulled out of bed, then led through to his rooms, where he grabbed his hearing aids and put them in, motioning that she should climb into his bed. Numbly, she obeyed, not objecting as he climbed up after her and wrapped her in a hug. "So, talk it out," was the quiet order, as he rested his chin on top of her head.

"Loki won," she whispered, grabbing for the blanket and pulling it up as far as she could. Clint kept her from pulling it over her head, but to the neck was good enough. "He won, and the Helicarrier crashed, because Stark and Rogers couldn't get the engine restarted in time. When I woke up after the crash, there were so many screams, and as I moved through the wreckage, so many bodies. I couldn't help any of them, I was so fixated on getting clear before things started blowing up and scared of making it all worse. I came across Coulson. He..." she sniffed, holding back tears. "He was pinned with a piece of shrapnel. It was a big piece. It was bad. I tried to get him out, take him with me, but he said no. It was hopeless for him, but he had a request. You know how he was, always so calm about everything. He wanted me to shoot him, make it faster, easier. I said no, he made it an order. I held his hand as he died. He was smiling."

She felt one hand leave her back, and heard him rummaging around under a pillow. A box of tissues appeared in front of her face as he put it on top of them, and then the hand returned to its place. "Go on," was all that he said, but his arms tightened around her slightly, then relaxed.

She grabbed a tissue, scrubbing at her face with it. "I got clear, then a Quinjet landed. I tried fighting them all off, but there were too many, and I was injured in the crash. They had me on my knees, then Loki just _appeared_, out of nowhere. 'Agent Romanoff,' he said. 'How positions have reversed, have they not? Now that your flying machine is out of the sky, your heroes scattered and dead, there is nothing to stop me.' He made a motion, and you came out of the Quinjet. 'Remember my promise?' he whispered to me, then looked at you. 'Agent Barton, you know what to do.' he said, then walked off." Natasha tried to roll over, away from Clint, but he wouldn't let her, arms tightening. She stopped resisting, knowing that his one arm was still probably hurting, and that he wouldn't let her try to go back to sleep, or go back to sleep himself, until they'd talked it all out. He relaxed one arm, but kept the other one tight across her back, holding her against his chest.

"Your eyes...they were so...empty." Natasha didn't try to hold back anymore, but let the tears flow. "Loki had said that he'd make you kill me slowly, intimately, and he kept his word. Mentally...I couldn't hide. You know all my tricks, and were able to prevent them all. Physically...it was nothing like I'd ever been subject to. And then, as you plunged your knife into my chest, Loki did...something, but you came back. And the look on your face when you saw it all, saw your hand still on the hilt, realized what you had done. I tried to tell you it was okay, but I couldn't talk, and you weren't looking at me anymore, you were going after Loki. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open as they shot you, and you died too, and it all started going black...and then you woke me up."

"Oh, Tasha," Clint's voice was just a whisper, but it was enough for her to start sobbing, fighting his arms so that she could curl up in a little ball. He let her, rubbing one hand up and down her back. "New one, huh." he said, as she quieted down.

"Yeah." She shifted, laying her head on his shoulder, one hand tracing some of the scars on his chest. He squirmed as she hit ticklish spots, and a feeling of devilish merriment struck her; sitting up, she attacked his sides with her fingers. Laughing, he batted her hands away, rolling over and pinning her down.

"Stop, or I'll make you sleep on the couch." His eyes were bright with laughter, but sobered quickly as he released her and sat up, propping a pillow up against the wall and leaning against it. "Alright. So we can classify this one as one of those shitty what-ifs."

Natasha sat up as well, nodding. "Not much to do about them, except work to make sure they don't come true."

"Which means?" Clint left the conclusion up to her.

"Next time Loki shows up, we both shoot the bastard where it hurts, and keep shooting him. Maybe ask Thor about getting to go to Asgard and shoot him, just because. I think...I think that this also came about because of tomorrow."

Clint nodded, glancing at the suit hanging on the door to his closet. His shoulder holster, SHIELD identification badge, and a positively ancient, for SHIELD, Beretta lay on the table that was positioned next to the closet, as well as an old, battered wallet. "Tomorrow," he announced, "is going to _suck_."

Natasha nodded – her own dark suit and accessories were all sitting out in her room. She felt something being pressed into her arm, and looked down to see a book.

"It'll take a bit for you to get back to sleep, so here." Clint yawned, shifting back down in bed, leaning around Natasha to turn on a small lamp clipped to the edge of the bed, then sneaking one arm around behind Natasha. "JARVIS, lights."

It was a well-worn copy of The Little Prince. Natasha knew Clint's attachment to this particular story, and wasn't surprised that he'd been reading it again tonight. She stretched out next to her partner, and got about halfway through the first chapter before she, too, fell asleep.

A vise around her waist woke her up, and it took a second for Natasha to remember why she wasn't in her own bed and what had happened. Clint was draped across her, his face buried in the back of her neck, and she could feel the slight shudders going through his body. "Clint?" she asked, only getting a response of being held tighter. She patted his arm. "Need to loosen up a bit." sighing in relief when he complied. "Thanks." He released her, and sat up. She ignored the tears she could see on his cheeks.

"Sorry."

"It's okay." She glanced around for a clock, not seeing one. "JARVIS, time?"

"It is 6:30 AM, Agent Romanoff."

"Thanks." she sat up, glancing over at Clint. "What happened to your clock?"

A shrug. "Tossed it in my sleep one night. I use my watch, anyways." He slapped her knee. "Need to get moving, though. There might be some questions this morning."

Natasha wrinkled her nose. "Can I shoot whoever asks?"

Clint grinned, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "Only if you want to deal with the Hulk tearing up the place. I'm just going to go deaf, make it as hard as possible for them." He rolled over the side of his bed, dropping to the floor. Glancing up, he asked, "want to play along? Thinking a reverse of that flophouse?"

Laughing, Natasha climbed out of the bed as well. "That will certainly throw a wrench into the works. Only until we have to leave."

"Yeah." Clint sobered up. "I'm going to get ready." He glanced at her, pulling out his hearing aids. "Scram."

As the two entered the kitchen, they glanced at the group sitting at the table. Steve looked unconcerned, staring straight at Clint and mouthing "everything okay?" then sitting back and eating at Clint's nod.

Clint read the questions being put their way by Tony and Bruce. Looking at Tony, he shook his head. Looking straight at Bruce, he frowned. "Questions later." he said firmly. "Today is a SHIELD day." Turning, he accepted the fruit and cup of yogurt that Natasha handed him, quickly eating both while leaning against the counter, back to the rest of the kitchen. Glancing over at Natasha, the archer then led the two of them out of the room and to the elevator.

"JARVIS," Tony began, "what is today for SHIELD again? And why are they both in suits?"

"It is a holiday for them, sir," the AI replied. "SHIELD was founded on this day, and reports state that it has evolved into a day of remembrance."

"Oh yeah, I remember now." Tony nodded. "Said that they'd be gone all day."

Steve nodded. "In the future, too, ignore their nightmares, Barton told me."

"Bit hard to, when Natasha has lungs on her that would put an opera singer to shame." Bruce pointed out. "Tony, think you could get some soundproofing on their rooms?"

"I'll look into it," Pepper broke in, as they heard the Quinjet based at the Tower take off. "Tony, Happy is waiting for you downstairs, you've a meeting in an hour."

The annual memorial service was, for the first time in recent memory, packed, and Clint and Natasha had to wind their way through the groups standing around, making their way towards the front of the Helicarrier, where they knew the people that needed proof that they were still there would be.

Soberly, Clint bent down and hugged a woman in a wheelchair, giving her a sad smile, getting one in response. "My turn next year," she whispered in a pained voice, grabbing one of Clint's hands. "About time, too." She feebly swatted at the hand she held as she saw him stop smiling and raise his hand to his face. "Stop that," she scolded. "What would Phil say?"

Clint managed a second smile. "That I was acting like I was raised in the circus?" He nodded, standing up. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?" He glanced around at the rest of the group. "Sir," he nodded at Director Fury.

"Agent Barton." The man nodded. "Agent Romanoff. Glad that you two showed up."

"We had to." Natasha was glancing around as she joined the conversation. "This year, for sure."

Fury nodded. "Good." He walked off.

"So, how are you two doing?" the older woman hadn't let go of Clint's hand, and reached her free hand out to Natasha. "Natasha, darling, have you been able to keep my favorite punk out of trouble?"

"Barely," Natasha said, taking the offered hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "He'd probably be hurting less if he had that arm in a sling right now, and there was an...accident, about four months ago now."

"Accident?" The woman looked at Clint. "Clinton Francis Barton..."

He sighed, sitting down on the deck of the Helicarrier so that he could see the woman better. "My arrows all exploded in a fight, and I had a couple in the quiver that were sonic-based, noise-emitting." He turned his head, showing his ear and the hearing aid there. "Made me go mostly deaf." He gave her a small smile, and shrugged. "The rest of it is all from a mission that we just got back from, the docs said it was okay if it was just wrapped up." He stood back up, glancing over at Natasha. "I haven't closed myself off, promise. I'm not great, but I'm okay."

The ceremony was a somber one, and this year took longer than normal, thanks to the attack on the Helicarrier by Loki and Clint. During the reading of the names of the dead of the past year, Clint stared solidly straight ahead at nothing, eyes closing only when he recognized a name, jaw tight. Natasha glanced down once, and saw his hand tightened on the back of the wheelchair. When Coulson's name was read, she heard him sharply inhale, and had to shove down her own instinctual reaction to cry. The woman in the wheelchair had no such compulsion, and Natasha saw tears running freely down her face.

At the end, Natasha spotted Fury making his way towards them, and reached out and grabbed Clint's sleeve.

"Agent Barton, I've an assignment for you." Fury frowned, slightly. "Two, actually."

"Director," Clint nodded.

"First, take Agent Smith home. When she lets you leave, I need your help. Hill is going off for a bit, and I can put you to use instead of your just sitting around taking up my valuable air."

"Um, sir, I've actually got surgery scheduled for a couple days from now. Doctors say that Stark's crazy idea'll actually work now that they've got all the testing done, even if there are restrictions on where it'll work the best."

"Even better. Come see me this afternoon."


	15. Chapter 15

Angst, fighting, making up, Clint shaves his head. Have had part of this written for weeks.

* * *

When Clint returned to the Tower that night, he ignored the calls from the living area to sit down and watch a movie and headed straight for his room. He pulled out the flash drive that had been burning a hole in his pocket ever since Fury had handed it to him and booted up his laptop, unsure if he was anticipating or dreading the files on it.

"Oof." Clint breathed out. "This is going to be interesting." He stood up, starting to head toward Natasha's door, then stopped. This was a decision that he needed to make on his own. He turned and walked to the door to the hallway, flipping the lock, then going back to his computer. "JARVIS, I'm not here," he said, pulling out his hearing aids. Tossing his laptop onto his bed, he changed out of his suit and sent a text to Natasha, telling her that no, he wasn't dead, but needed time alone, before climbing into bed himself.

He took a second, longer, look at what he'd been given, wondering just what it all meant. Promotions and increases in clearance levels were usually handled in a "way to go, have more shit to do," manner, and assignments came from the handler. This, though, looked like an assignment, combined with a bit of a promotion, and he could see why Fury wasn't worried about him being post-surgery, since it involved a lot of standing around while Hill was gone. It was the rest of it that was disturbing.

Closing the laptop, Clint tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his face roughly, trying to assimilate it all. He'd been doing field work for so long, he wasn't sure that he was able to do anything _but_, and the rest of the assignment confused him. With a sigh, he picked up the laptop, rolling out of bed. He wanted a shower.

When Clint emerged from his room the next morning and walked into the kitchen, Natasha just glanced at him with a lifted eyebrow. He nodded, moving to the fridge and pulling out the eggs. "Get to play Hill for a couple weeks." He didn't mention the rest of his new assignment; she'd be upset that he wasn't entirely truthful, but she'd deal. Clint wasn't quite sure what he thought of it, either, especially since it would affect his ability to go into the field as much. He wished that Coulson was still around to bounce this situation off of. A sudden thought hit him, and he turned to Natasha, keeping half an eye on the stove. "Going back to the Helicarrier after breakfast, was going to stay there tonight. Want to come?"

She shook her head. "No, I'll come over later on. I need to have a talk with a couple people here, first." Natasha narrowed her eyes, looking at Clint. "What aren't you saying?"

"I don't know." Clint dumped the eggs out on a plate and started eating. "It has the potential to be big, and I don't know how to come at it. Right now, I'm thinking of telling Fury where to shove it, but I want to try and work it out on my own, first." He shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"You should be. It's been years since you've kept something from me, especially something big." Natasha stood up, carrying her dishes to the sink. "And I hope that you'll be able to tell me, soon. Tonight." She left the room without another word.

* * *

Clint tapped lightly on a door, hoping that he wasn't making a huge mistake. At the invitation to enter, he opened it and stuck his head in. "Hey, Doctor Beeks, have a minute?"

"Clint! Didn't think you'd had another mission..." the psychiatrist started tapping at his computer, looking confused.

"I didn't. Actually, I need some advice." Clint fully entered the room, shutting the door behind him and locking it, before moving to a chair. "And I think that you're the best one who can help me out with that."

"Natasha can't?" The doctor sat back in his chair. "What about the rest of the folks that you're living with now?"

"No." Clint shook his head. "This has the potential to affect everybody, so I wanted a viewpoint that was a bit removed. Most of them would tell me to tell Fury to stick these orders where the sun doesn't shine. Coulson..." he took a breath. "Coulson would've been best, yeah, but I can't think of what he'd say in this situation, which is bugging me a bit."

"Huh. Well, I think that just suggests that it's a situation that Coulson wouldn't've experienced to your knowledge. What is it?"

"More desk duties and leadership-type stuff, and cutting back on direct field ops outside of extreme circumstances, like Avenger's stuff or something that I absolutely _have_ to do. I've already been told that I'm filling in for Hill while she's off for the next couple weeks." Clint sighed, leaning back in the chair. "I'm not forty yet, and with one, _one_, notable exception I'm totally good for anything that they can ask me to do, and tomorrow I'm getting that exception hopefully fixed to the point where it won't be as much of a liability. Sure, crashing through plate glass windows after fighting off an alien invasion and a few days of being a watcher in my own mind isn't the first thing I want to do in the morning anymore and it takes a bit longer to heal than it used to, can sometimes feel when the weather changes, but I'm not out of the fight yet."

"That's not all that's bugging you, is it."

"You're good, doc. It isn't."

"I've known you for almost twenty years now, Clint. I think I would be able to pick up a couple things. So, let me try and guess what else is the problem. First, Coulson's death. You aren't over it yet, even though you act like you are. I was there yesterday, saw you and Natasha, didn't get a chance to come over and talk to you two. Second, that whole Loki situation. It's been a year, barely, since that all ended and you're still feeling guilty. Third, you put a lot of trust in some stuff that was relatively untested, and you feel that you're now paying the price because you lost your hearing and you're still not all over that, either. The fact that you're getting implants that have that Stark spin on them is also probably pretty stressful, plus the fact that it's surgery. And I know, you've gone under the knife more than a bit for things a lot more critical than this, but there's still a stressful aspect to it each time."

"Yes. No. I don't know." Clint was feeling frustrated. He hadn't spoken of deep feelings to anybody in _years_, and so this was getting a little uncomfortable.

"Tough, huh? People, independent men like you especially, don't like to talk about this sort of thing. And I'm sorry, that I didn't drag you two in here to start talking it all out a lot sooner." He paused at Clint's shrug. "When was the last time you had a real vacation?"

"Possibly never? In the beginning, it was all training, then learning to work with Tasha. Don't really feel the need to take them, get enough downtime as it is and I'm happy just hanging out around here or in Manhattan." He pointed a finger at the doctor. "No drugs, doc. I am who I am, and I'm happy. Just a little stressed out and confused right now."

"Wasn't going to suggest them. You've said no enough in the past that the order has been given that nobody in the psych department is even to _think_ of your name and psychotropic medication in the same sentence unless you're the one asking. No, I was going to suggest that you take a real vacation, get some time to spend by yourself someplace. Use one of the safe houses, so folks know where you are for emergencies like the end of the world, but someplace _other_ than Manhattan or the Helicarrier."

"Sitwell did mention a place in Montana..." Clint murmured. "That might be kinda nice." He stood up.

"Done?"

"No. Little stiff." Clint started wandering around the room. "Bit sore. I like that idea, though, of getting away for a bit. Mountains are always fun."

"Want some Tylenol? Think I've got some here, someplace." The doctor dug through his desk at Clint's nod, pulling out a bottle. "Here."

"Thanks," was the reply. "So, what about all the rest of this?"

"It's why I'm suggesting that you take some time off, because it'll give you a chance to grieve without feeling like you have to play a role. The grief process has been studied, and one of the things that has been decided is that while there are certain things that just about everybody has in common, each person has to go through it in their own way and on their own time. It's human to want to let it out, so don't feel ashamed about feeling angry, or upset, or wanting to cry for hours at a time. Be angry at Coulson, be angry at Stark, just don't be angry with yourself for getting mad or injured."

"He was a fucking _idiot_ for going after a demi-god with an untested weapon." Clint shook his head, sounding angry. "But it was what he'd do. Guess it also gave the push needed, although I'm plenty pissed on his behalf about what Fury did with those trading cards, especially seeing as how much he valued them." He sighed. "Tried to clean them a bit, but dried blood on paper just doesn't come out. I...just wish he wasn't gone."

"Good thoughts to have, and I know that you'll be able to work most of it out on your own. Now, the new orders you've been given. What do you think would have happened in, say, fifteen, twenty years if things hadn't happened like they did?"

"Don't really know." Clint sat back down. "I've never really thought about that; whatever was best for SHIELD, whatever Fury and Coulson told me to do. If I was even alive, there's always been a pretty good chance that I'd be ending up in a body-bag before I had to think about quitting field duty."

"What about all the guys on teams? They're shifted to doing things like running the ranges, becoming trainers. Some go on and become handlers. Couldn't you end up doing the same?" The look that Clint gave him made the doctor nod. "You're right, probably not. _Maybe_ if it was somebody who was going to be doing exactly what you do, but I don't think not even then. But, Clint, what if what you're being told to do is actually what's best for SHIELD? And, it isn't like you're being pulled from field duty entirely; you'll probably find yourself out there as much as you want. You're just being pulled from missions that really don't need you."

"I've thought of that," Clint nodded. "Not an issue."

"Okay. So is it the increase of duties that's the problem?"

"Fury wants me to be an official liaison, between SHIELD and the Avengers. Not a problem, Stark said that there aren't any closed doors in the Tower. Computers need some hacking, but I've tried it, and the security that he's put on them is actually pretty laughable, but it may just be that way for me and Natasha, and I'm surprised at how well I'm getting along with them. Bit more paperwork, get to try and get some sort of mission report out of them, but that's still being worked out. It's the new stuff here at SHIELD that's the problem, because it feels like I'm being turned into a _suit_."

A knock on the door had Clint visibly freezing. It would have been laughable, if Doctor Beeks wasn't trying to be professional. "Just a second!" He called out, moving towards the door, allowing himself a small smile. Unlocking it, he cracked it open. "Agent Romanoff. Can I help you?"

"Barton's in there. I need to talk to him." Natasha had her arms crossed in obvious annoyance. "He's hiding something and being significantly less than honest and,"

"And he's trying to work it all out." Clint had come up and was standing behind the doctor. "Look, Nat, if you were told that you were being turned into a suit and getting pulled from most field activities, what would you do? Exactly. I'll find you later and we can have it out then." He turned around.

"I wouldn't hide it from my partner!" Natasha snapped, pushing her way into the room. "I wouldn't run away from it! I would tell whoever to take those orders and _eat_ them! I certainly wouldn't think about not talking about it with the people that it would most affect! I would _talk_ with my partner when I was hurting! And you _hate_ Psych!"

Doctor Beeks sighed at the sounds of the two yelling, and simply went to his desk, pulling out a piece of paper, a pen, and some tape. Taping the "disturb on pain of death, all appointments canceled. Enjoy." sign to the outside of his door, he closed and locked it. Turning around as he heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh, he shouted, once. "Hey!"

Clint, looking faintly shocked, glanced over, red mark on his cheek. Natasha didn't move at first, but with a sob, started heading towards the door. "Let me out," she ordered.

"No. Sit down, Agent Romanoff, and you too, Agent Barton. I'll pull _all_ your clearances if _either_ one of you starts heading for the door or gets physical again. Wrong place, wrong time. Understand?" At the muttered agreements from the two, he sat down behind his desk. "Now, start talking," he ordered, pulling out a blank notepad and a fresh pen. He had a suspicion that he was going to need them both.

When, after three hours, it was decided that the two weren't going to kill, mutilate, maim, or even _say_ anything to each other, they were kicked out of the office and told to return in an hour after having eaten. Natasha watched as Clint strode off without a backwards look, anger still clear, before slumping down in a chair, attempting to hold back her tears.

A box of tissues was held out in front of her face. "I'm pulling your field clearances until this is all worked out," the psychiatrist said mildly. "Come on back in."

She followed him back into the office, holding the box like a lifeline. "Why?" She asked, sitting back down in her chair.

"Because neither of you are able to be productive right now, and my rather admittedly limited power means that this is the best that I can do for you to try and work out whatever is going on in your heads and with each other, Natasha. I have to think of what's best for SHIELD, and sending you back out into the field as you are will only lead to problems. The only way that I'll let you back out for something other than the end of the world will be when you show to me that you've gotten it all worked out. To that end, I'm telling you to take a vacation, alone. Nobody from SHIELD, nobody from the Avengers, no Clint. Use a SHIELD safe house, but figure out where you'd like to spend a few weeks. The beach, maybe? I just don't want you to be on the Helicarrier or anywhere near the state of New York."

"Stark's Malibu house?" Natasha asked.

"No, it has to be a SHIELD house. Them's the rules I've made, and I'm sticking to them. Now, go get something to eat." Doctor Beeks shooed Natasha out of the room with a wave of his hand, before turning to his computer. When he heard the door shut and a quick glance around showed that he was alone in the room, he picked up his phone. "Agent Sitwell, it's Doctor Beeks. Pulling field clearances on Barton and Romanoff for at _least_ one month, and need you to get them a couple safe houses. Send Barton to the mountains, Romanoff to the beach, if you can. Different states, though, and don't tell them where the other is going. Damn," he muttered, running a hand through his hair at Sitwell's question. "Forgot about that. Well, do what you can, and I'll try to work something out with Medical, and I'll let Fury know. I'm not going to clear Barton for _anything_ other than taking a vacation right now, and Romanoff is borderline, depending on how this afternoon goes. If you can get that to me in a couple hours, that'd be ideal. Thanks." He spun back to his computer, sending a request for a meeting with Director Fury for as soon as was possible, then pulled out a Power Bar. It wouldn't replace a full lunch, but it would get him through the next few hours. A glance at the clock had him hurrying out of his office to talk with one of the medical staff; the sooner that all this could be dealt with, the better.

It took another few hours of talking, but the two left visibly calmer, and, most importantly to Doctor Beeks' mind, acting like they weren't about to try and kill each other in the gym. A knock on the door a few minutes later had the psychiatrist looking up. "Director. Thanks for meeting with me."

"Just what exactly is going on?" Fury didn't sit down, just stood behind a chair. "And why two of my best assets are being pulled from duty for a month?"

"Maybe more. The problem, sir, is that neither of them is fully fit to do their jobs, and I don't think they've been fully fit for the past year. They're so focused on doing what is best for SHIELD that they haven't been taking care of themselves, and it's going to hit a breaking point. Frankly, I was on board during that little shindig last year, and I'd really rather not have to deal with something like that again. Barton alone was bad enough, could you imagine what would happen if he paired up with Romanoff and _wasn't_ under the control of a total loon? I'm not pulling them from everything, so if the world needs saving again, they're allowed to come in. One month, Director, and then you'll have most everything back together again. Unfortunately, that means that Barton won't be able to do the first part of the assignment that you gave him because he'll probably be out destroying some trees or a safe house." He looked at the Director, trying to decide just how much to reveal. "They just had a pretty big blow-up in here, took damn near all day to get them sorted out."

"Hrmph," Fury snorted, one hand tapping the back of the chair, before nodding once. "Barton is going to Maine, Romanoff to California. One month. If they ask, I've got things for them to do while they're out lazing around." He turned to leave, pausing in the doorway. "Thank you, Doctor."

* * *

As they left the office, Clint glanced at his watch and then over at Natasha, with a slight tilt to his head. She nodded, and the two started walking to find some dinner. It wasn't until they were standing in the hallway outside the doors to their quarters that the silence was broken. "C'mon," Clint said, walking through his room to the bathroom. "Could use some help." Natasha followed, leaning against the wall as Clint pulled out some scissors and a razor.

"I'm sorry," she said, as Clint stared at his reflection in the mirror. "I should have trusted you more. This just scares me, too."

"Yeah," Clint nodded, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "And I'm sorry, too. I should have brought this to you first, but honestly, I didn't think. I also didn't think that I could get an honest response from anybody who could have been even slightly involved. So," he said, returning his gaze to his own head. "Should I go for the mohawk look, bald patches, or just shave it all?" He sighed. "Damn Stark. Fuck me. Fuck _everybody_. At least it's just hair."

"Why are we being sent away? And totally bald, it looks funny, but it's the least bizarre of all your options." Natasha sat down on the floor. "At least you keep your hair short."

"Yeah, that's a bonus, I guess." Clint shook his head as he spread a towel out on the counter, before kneeling down and rummaging through a drawer. "And the doc says we need vacations. Well, he said that _I_ needed a vacation, but after our spat, probably decided that it'd be best if we both got time-outs."

"Mmmm." Natasha hummed. "Sorry for hitting you, by the way."

"No, you're not." Clint pulled his hearing aids out, dunking his head in the sink. "You've been wanting to do that for a few days, I could tell." He shook his head vigorously, hitting Natasha with water droplets, grinning at the face she made.

Moving to sit on the counter, Natasha shook her head. "Yes," she signed, "but not there. Only in a fair fight."

"Weren't you the one who told me that a fight was only fair if you got the drop on the other guy?" Clint was focused on the process of shaving his head, but Natasha could see the humor in his eyes. "And you'll want to smack me again in the future, and I'll want to smack you sometimes, and we'll just go to the gym and work it all out, just like we've done since you first got here. C'mon, Nat, we're only human, and part of being human is getting pissed off at people. We're just a bit more violent with each other about it, because of how we've been trained and all that jazz. I _hate_ yelling at you and having you yell at me, sparring is a hell of a lot easier, and we're so evenly matched most of the time that who wins or loses doesn't even matter. And, actually, I'm halfway looking forward to getting some time away from all this."

Natasha nodded. "You're right. And you're still an idiot. Do you know where you're going?"

"Nope, no clue, hoping for some mountains and no people, though. You?"

"Beach. Get a tan." Natasha took a critical look at Clint's head and held out her hand. "You missed a bit. Here." When Clint handed over the razor, she quickly got the few spots on the back of his head. He dunked his head in the sink again, and she passed him a clean towel.

"God, this is weird," he said, putting his hearing aids back in and running one hand over his head. "Know I've gone bald before, but it's still so different."

Natasha laughed. "You do look funny, but you always look funny."

"Insolent wench." Clint shot back at her. "Want to watch a movie? Think I still have most of mine here." He turned to leave the bathroom. "Besides, I'm voluntarily getting surgery tomorrow. Little stressful, plus, looked up some new stuff. Tony is going to have to figure out a way to make the microphones a lot more comfortable than he's saying they are, because I won't be able to use hearing aids any more after they put the implants in. Going to suggest that the rest of the team learn sign language, just in case."

"No?" Natasha followed Clint, before settling in his bed. "Movie, archer boy," she commanded. "I'll even let you pick this time."

"_So_ nice of you," Clint dug through his wardrobe. "Just for that, we're watching Star Wars until we both pass out. And yeah, something that we _all_ managed to overlook is that the implants'll mean cutting the nerve. Zero input from my ears after that. I think that everybody's so confident that it'll work that it never really became an issue, because Tony Stark said it would and just didn't shut up about it all." He slipped the DVD into the player, flopping down on the bed next to Natasha.

"Oh. What if it doesn't work?"

"I don't know." The slight bite to Clint's words showed just how nervous he was. "Now hush. Movie time."

Neither Clint nor Natasha were surprised to see the group of people waiting for them the next morning in Medical. "Um, hi?" Clint asked. "You all look like you're at a funeral or something. Tasha, take a note. Slip laughing gas into the air vents next time somebody needs surgery. And get respirators for the medical staff."

"Note taken," Natasha replied with a small smile. "Although I think drugging them up individually would be easier and less likely to get you caught. Think that Psych would let you have some of their happy pills?"

"Possibly...possibly." Clint nodded, staring around. "Think so, doc?"

"Only if you took 'em, too, Clint. Now a dart gun, that may have promise." Doctor Beeks pushed off from the wall that he was leaning against. "Nice haircut."

"Aw, thanks. Didn't know you cared." Clint headed for the nurse that he could see standing in a doorway with a wave. "See ya."

Natasha watched him go, then turned for the door. "I am going for breakfast and then the range, you're welcome to come if you want."

"They're a lot more calm than you'd expect, considering all that's going on." Steve watched Natasha as she left.

"They've been working together enough that this sort of thing doesn't bother them, and they know that it's useless to sit around worrying. In their minds, this is just like going to get a cavity filled, and they're also really good at not showing fear. Besides, he's going in voluntarily, which is completely different from emergency surgery. Hi, I'm Doctor Beeks, one of the psychiatrists here. You probably don't want to hover, it's liable to get you shoved into an exam room and getting stuck with needles. Any of you feel like you need somebody to talk to, my door is usually open." He nodded, turning around and heading into his office.

"Psychiatrist?" Steve looked at Bruce in confusion.

"Not surprising, considering what sort of things go on here." Bruce shrugged. "I had some tests running, results should be in and I can access them from here. So, Tony, lab?"


	16. Chapter 16

Anesthesia can make people act in funny ways. Starting to wind down towards the end of the story.

* * *

Clint hated waking up from general anesthesia; he never knew if he'd be in restraints or not. This time, he wasn't, and he slowly opened his eyes, automatically cataloging how he felt. Besides a sore throat that was far too dry, nothing else was new, and he blinked a couple times, trying to bring the world back into focus. Natasha was in her usual position next to the bed, and he raised his eyebrows at her in question.

She nodded, and passed over a cup with ice chips and helped him sit up as he calmly shook half the cup into his mouth. Closing his eyes in relief as the ice melted and helped take away the dry feeling, he opened them and looked over at Natasha. "How many people need apologies, and how many need flowers, chocolate, and groveling?" he asked, feeling slightly startled – where before, he could at least tell that he was talking, now there was nothing.

"Surprisingly, none," she wrote on a notepad, "feeling okay?"

"Yeah," he yawned. "Sleeping again." He held out the cup, and, after she took it, left his hand out. Relaxing as she held it and started rubbing her thumb across his fingers, he shrugged the blankets up higher and went back to sleep.

Natasha shifted in her chair, propping her feet up on the edge of the bed. "Yes?" She asked at the whisper of sound from the door, keeping her eyes on the DVD player in her lap. "Can I help you?"

"Are we allowed in?" Steve's voice had Natasha looking up, seeing him, Tony, and Bruce all staring at her.

"Sure," Natasha shrugged. "He's asleep, though, and I'm keeping the chair. Stay off the bed."

Tony glanced down at her hand with a small smirk, where she was still rubbing her thumb against Clint's fingers as he walked in, and the others followed his gaze. "Sleeping Beauty having trouble sleeping?"

"It's a thing." Natasha looked back down at her movie. "He woke up, went back to sleep. Come back in a couple hours if you want to see him awake. Bring me some hot tea with lemon, if you do. And some apple juice."

The next time Clint woke up, he could feel Natasha's hand in his, which wasn't unusual. Opening his eyes, he looked around, seeing Tony, Steve, and Bruce leaning against the wall, which was new. "Who died?" He asked, smiling slightly as they all jumped. Natasha gave his hand a slight squeeze, then pulled away and pressed a glass against his knuckles. "Thanks," he said, taking a glance at what she was handing him, before chugging the juice. "When can I leave?"

Natasha shrugged, shifting so that she could face him better. "Ask doctor." She turned to face the three men against the wall. Clint watched as they nodded and Bruce left, then reached out and tapped Natasha on the arm. "Sorry," she signed.

Tony sat on the foot of the bed, pulling out a tablet and tossing it in Clint's lap. "Speech to text," Clint read. "Nice nap?"

"Lovely," Clint agreed, "But the cheering section looks a bit too grim. And male." Glancing over at Natasha, he grinned at her. "The Russian judge looks just right, however. Hey!" He made a face as Natasha lightly slapped his arm. "Calling abuse of partner! Where's the ref!"

"Agent Barton. How are you feeling?" The doctor walked in, interrupted Clint.

"Fascinated. Tony has different fonts for different people. And wondering where my reward for being good is." Clint felt a chill go up his spine at the sudden realization that it was Coulson who did that sort of thing, and Coulson wasn't there anymore. "Unless you're a SHIELD doctor or Natasha, get out." He stared at the wall, watching out of the corner of his eye as Tony ushered Bruce and Steve out. "Fucking Beeks," he muttered as he watched the door close. "Damn drugs. Doc, do I have to stay here? And did you give me anything?"

"If you can answer my questions to my satisfaction, and promise to come back if you've got any problems, then we'd actually prefer it if you were to stay someplace other than Medical, especially for such a minor procedure. And yes, we slipped you a light sedative in with the painkillers to help take the edge off. I was worried that you'd flip out when you woke up, it'll wear off. It's a new one, so hopefully it doesn't have the same side effects as the usual, please let me know what you think."

When Clint left Medical with Natasha, he saw Tony, Bruce, and Steve sitting around in the hall. "Hi. Right now, I'm going for some food, and then being a very good little archer and lazing around watching television for the next few days. After that, Natasha and I being sent on vacation." The word vacation felt wrong coming out of his mouth, and Clint just started walking towards the mess hall. Glancing at the tablet as the three men scrambled to follow, he read the questions that were being put his way. "Hold on a bit? And I wasn't lying, you guys have got to work on the cheering section, or else I really will start slipping you all stuff. Whatever I'm on right now would probably work." Clint put the blame on the drugs that the doctor had given him for the fact that he was so calm about walking around without being able to hear anything, and stored the thought away for later that maybe, just maybe, he trusted the other men to watch his back.

Natasha nudged his arm, and he glanced down at the tablet. "Where do you want to stay?" Clint could feel her amusement when he tilted the tablet towards her. "Stark, pink?"

"I have reason to not give Pepper the color pink. You're the only other female that he talks to, so why not?" Clint could only imagine the tone of Tony's voice, and he kept his gaze focused on the tablet, following the conversation.

It wasn't until they had all gotten food and were sitting down that Clint voiced a question that he'd been wondering about. "Hey, Tony. Think you could link JARVIS into this thing?"

"JARVIS? Sure. Why?"

"It's a better conversationalist than all of you combined." Clint carefully kept his face blank, swallowing back his laugh. "And since I get to be your paperwork nag, it can help me keep track of all that, too." He poked at his meal. "Tasha, think I want to stay at the Tower; food here is good, but food there is better and it's easier to get take out."

"Unless you try to cook anything but breakfast and treats." Clint glanced up, seeing a sly smile on Bruce's face. "Question for you, Clint. Where did you learn to cook?"

"Played dishwasher for a bit in a diner with a _killer_ bakery. My target liked to eat breakfast there, so I worked the overnight and morning shifts. Picked up a few things while scrubbing pots." Clint shrugged. "Poor guy just couldn't handle the cyanide in his coffee. Or it may have been the danish. Can never have too much poison with your meal." He laughed, watching as everybody but Natasha slowly put down whatever they'd been eating. One hand shot out to grab Natasha's wrist as she started to pull his plate towards her. "_Mine_, woman. Go back for more, if you're that hungry. Or take Steve's, he's looking a little soft around the middle." He took a large bite of his meal, enjoying the looks he was being given.

"You two," Clint read Tony's lips, "are scary."

"You've known us for how long, and are just coming to that conclusion?" Clint gently shook his head; some of the painkillers were starting to wear off. "Look, rule one is that you don't fuck with your teammates. Physically, at least, unless you're in the gym with some ground rules. Not responsible for anything mental that comes from answering the questions that I'm allowed to. Now, I'd kinda like to get to someplace other than here before all the happy drugs that the doctors snuck me wear off and I start to get angry. Nobody wants me angry right now."

"Isn't that usually Bruce's line?"

* * *

By the time that they got back to the Tower that evening, Clint was starting to feel an edge of anxiety. Shoving it down, he chose to retreat to his room after passing the tablet off to Tony to play with more, flopping down on the couch and turning on the television. Natasha followed him in, shutting the door behind her, before sitting on the couch at his feet. "So." He said.

"So," she signed. "need to finish our conversation from yesterday. And nice title, paperwork nag."

"Better name than official SHIELD rep or liaison or whatever for a bunch of loonies. But, as long as everything heals up right and works the way that Tony's promising, I'm still good for field duties." He grinned at Natasha. "You haven't lost your partner."

"Even though he's lost his wits." She had a sour look on her face. "You _hate_ desk duty."

"Totally. Had a good point made to me yesterday, though. What happens when we can't do field duty anymore?" The look on Natasha's face had suggested that she hadn't thought of that. "Exactly. No way in hell would either of us settle for being stuck in one place."

"What do you think Coulson would say about all this?" She reached over, and started tugging at his shoelaces. Clint watched her lips move, catching parts of words, and looked over at the TV.

"Thanks, JARVIS. Gotta say, glad that Tony created you. And it's my room, I can put my shoes on the furniture if I want to. Coulson...I don't know. I wonder if he'd have been the one suggesting this." He hummed as Natasha pulled his feet onto her lap. "Actually, it seems like something that he'd do."

"It does." Natasha eyed Clint speculatively. "Going to start wearing something other than your usual?" She laughed at the look he gave her. "I wouldn't, either."

"Bit of body armor makes me feel safer than a tie, that's for sure." Clint sighed, then changed the subject. "Wanna see what Tony has lined up on his Netflix account?"

Natasha nodded, then tilted her head. "Later." She stood up, pointing at the TV, then headed towards the door to her room.

"Huh?" Clint glanced at the television, where JARVIS had put up on the screen a video of Thor arriving on the roof, and the call-out for the Avengers. He automatically started to get up to get ready to leave, but various twinges, along with the distinct lack of sound, had him sitting back down. "Damn." He stood up again, digging in his pocket for the bottle of painkillers the doctor had handed him, and, grabbing a Gatorade out of his fridge, went out to the main room.

Natasha spotted him, and pointed at a table, where he saw a tablet sitting out. Wandering over to grab it, Clint glanced over the reports of Loki showing up, again, this time with some group of water creatures that were currently terrorizing the Hudson River. "Hey, Tasha," he said, without turning around to look at the group. "Hit him for me where it hurts." An idea hit him, and he turned to look at her. "Wait one."

Hurrying back to his room, Clint grabbed an arrow, a plain, basic broadhead, and snapped the head off. Walking back into the main room, he tossed it to her. "You know what to do." Natasha grinned, a feral showing of her teeth, making the arrowhead vanish. "Have fun, good luck, and don't destroy too much, 'kay?" He leaned against the wall, feigning nonchalance. The small quirk of Natasha's lips showed that she saw right through his act, but she followed the others out with just a nod and jaunty wave. "Somebody has got to talk to Thor about how Loki keeps on getting loose."

As the doors shut, Clint moved over to the couch, an idea forming. "JARVIS, how many video feeds that you can access are in the area?" A map appeared on the TV, red dots blinking. "Is this linked into the tablet, as well?" He nodded as a matching map appeared. "Okay, pull up these." He selected several cameras, narrowing his eyes at the slightly grainy pictures. "Huh. Let's try these, and pull up the SHIELD satellites overhead, use authorization code Barton-niner-three-omega." By the time that he saw Iron Man and Thor appear, he'd gotten the camera feeds set up to his satisfaction, and absentmindedly nodded his thanks as Pepper placed a mug of coffee down on the table in front of him, before curling up in a chair. She kept in his line of sight, just watching Clint as he split his attention between the TV and the tablet.

"Sir, Agent Barton wishes me to inform you that Loki is located approximately two blocks east of here, should you desire to relay that to the rest." JARVIS's cool tones made Tony look around as he swerved to avoid a boat.

"Huh. Cool. Hey, Hawkeye found Loki for us. Who wants to go and get him this time?" A second message had Tony smirking. "And 'tell Nat that if she misses, she still owes me a trip to the zoo,' whatever that means. And JARVIS, connect into the communications with the rest."

"It means, Stark, that somebody needs to hold Loki very, very still. And take pictures." Natasha's voice was a growl. "Evacuation is almost complete."

Back at the Tower, Clint relaxed into the couch, glancing over at Pepper. "Thanks for the coffee." He kept his eyes on her face, guessing that she had at least one question for him.

"How do you stay so calm?"

"Right now? Whatever drugs the docs told me to take for the next seven days, and thinking about if I actually want to yell at them for giving me more than just a painkiller. Thinking about whose Netflix queue I want to screw with first. Trying to decide if it'd be worth it to mess up Tony or Bruce's labs a bit. The knowledge that if I was out there, I'd be a liability instead of an asset, and doing this," he waved at the TV screen, "is helping them almost as much as if I was actually there. Cops can deal with evacuations, Natasha is doing that as well. The other three are dealing with the snake things and picking up Loki. Tasha, there's a kid left behind. He's inside the newsstand across the street from you. And I've been in SHIELD for almost twenty years now. If I was prone to flipping out over this sort of thing, I wouldn't be a very good at my job. Plus, SHIELD is going to need to come in and help with cleanup on this one, so this way they won't be coming in blind." Clint frowned slightly. "Hey, Pepper. Can you go get me something? My room, box by that graduation picture." When she returned, he took it and placed it next to him on the couch. "Thanks. Cap, behind you."

Pepper wasn't looking at Clint, but thought that she also heard a low "And I'm trying to be just like Coulson would expect me to be," as she returned to her chair.

* * *

Clint kept an eye on Pepper as he continued to watch the fight. As her mug started to tilt, he hurried over and grabbed it before it could spill. Seeing that she'd fallen asleep, Clint covered her with a blanket before returning to his spot on the couch. It took another hour before Clint watched Natasha shoot Loki in the thigh, feeling a level of satisfaction that at least one of the causes for his current set of problems was also hurting, and SHIELD moved in to start clean up. "JARVIS, do you have these videos all saved?"

"Yes, Agent Barton. File name is 'Hudson,' I have placed it in the main database." Clint read what the AI wrote, then nodded.

He knelt down in front of Pepper, gently shaking her knee. "Hey, Pepper. Might want to wake up, they're on their way back." He didn't move as she stirred, looking up at her face. "Tony's on his way back, he's going to want something to eat, same with Bruce and Steve. Thor will probably be here, too. Want to start coming up with some food ideas that we can get pretty quickly? Pizza, maybe?"

"What about Natasha?" Pepper was starting to look alert.

"She'll be down for whatever, after she gets a shower." Clint watched Pepper as she looked up, then turned around. "That was incredibly slow, Tony. Need a walker? Scooter? Told you exactly where Loki was, and it still too you nearly two hours." He grinned. "Hey, Thor."

Thor nodded. Clint watched his lips move, with the sudden realization that whatever language Thor spoke, it was understandable if you heard it, but lip reading was a completely different story.

"Wow, can't understand a single word you just said." Clint moved back to the couch, grabbing the tablet. "Try again."

"Your input was greatly valued, Clint Barton," Clint read. "Your arrows were missed, however. Your new hairstyle is...different."

"Yeah. Hey, where are the rest? Where'd you stash Loki? And we've gotta talk – this is kinda silly, that you guys keep on locking him up and he keeps on getting out."

"Loki has been returned to Asgard; it was but a matter of minutes. The All-Father agrees with your statement."

"The rest are all back." Natasha was standing in front of Clint, holding out the arrowhead and a scrap of green fabric. "Here, present. Shooting him felt good."

"I bet." Clint leaned forward slightly, carefully sniffing Natasha's shoulder. "Fish, Tasha? You picking up another job?" He laughed at the look she gave him. "Go shower, Pepper's ordering in some food." He yawned. "So, I'm going to bed. We can do whatever the hell it is that Fury wants us to do after this sort of thing when we're all awake, it'd be nice if you could stick around for that, Thor." He followed Natasha down the hall.

Back in the main room, Tony was about to sit down when he noticed a small box laying on the couch. "Hey, this belong to anybody?"

"It's Clint's." Pepper was heading for the elevator. "I don't think he left it out here on purpose."

"Huh. Wonder what's in it." Tony looked over the box for any obvious way to open it. Holding it up to his ear, he shook it lightly. "Something in it, too."

"It is nothing that concerns you," Natasha had appeared suddenly, plucking the box from Tony's hands. "Ask Clint to show you later."


	17. Chapter 17

Clint discovers what his problem really is, and that life isn't as bad as he was thinking.

* * *

"Well then, Agent Barton. Incisions looks like they're healing up nicely, should we try hooking everything up and see how you feel?"

"_Please_." Clint was tired of feeling on edge, he was tired of just sitting around staring at the TV or computer all day, and he was tired of having to either stare at that damned tablet or lipread whenever he wanted to talk with anybody other than Natasha. "And could you take another look at my arm? Won't be around for my scheduled follow-up."

"Sure, had already planned on it." The doctor nodded, picking up a small case. "So, here are the microphones. Few different sizes and methods of attachment." He picked up a second, larger case. "Transmitters. Stark should be your hero, because this normally goes on your head, over the implants themselves, but he's modified everything so that it goes into your ear, just like your hearing aids. Take 'em out for a couple hours each day, if possible. They're water resistant, so shower okay, going for a long-distance swim in the Hudson isn't."

"Stark's the reason that I needed all this," Clint grumbled, taking a look at the transmitters. "Safe to put these in?"

The doctor nodded, and watched as Clint carefully placed them into his ears. "How do they feel?"

"Better than the hearing aids, that's for sure. Those things itched more than a little." Clint was starting to feel hopeful that maybe, just maybe, this would work. Very little that Tony created actually blew up, and he had reason to give Clint the best that he could do. Clint reached out for the microphone case. "These, too?"

"Just one second." The doctor picked up a laptop. "I just want to make sure that everything's off, so that you don't get startled." He hit a couple keys. "Go ahead, just clip them to your collar for now. They're labeled." He watched as Clint followed the instructions. "Okay. I'm going to turn everything on now, but keep the volume down. Tell me how it feels."

Clint watched as the doctor hit a few buttons. "Nothing." The doctor hit a key. "Bit of a hum." Another keystroke. "Hearing...something. Not quite sure what, it's pretty soft." It took another two tries before "Still can't tell _what_ I'm hearing, but I'm hearing it." Clint thought about what noises were normally present on the Helicarrier. "Engines?" He guessed.

The doctor's lips moved, and Clint was able to tell that he was saying "that's correct," but the sounds that he was getting didn't match. "Doc, can't understand you? Or me, even?"

"Not surprised. Your brain needs some time to adapt to the different signals that it's getting now. It averages out to be about six months, according to the literature, but it can be faster. Considering how quickly you adapted to the hearing aids, I've a suspicion that it'll be fast. The programming of the implants will help, too. By the time you're cleared for field duty, you'll barely recognize that you've got them." Clint thought that he could actually understand some of the words that he was hearing. He did recognize the sound of a phone ringing. The doctor held up one finger as he went to answer it. "Yes?" He turned away from Clint for the rest of the conversation, and so Clint could only catch a few words. "To...the...okay...I...him." Turning back around, he hung up the phone. "You need to go see Beeks after we're done here. Sitwell's office, they've some stuff for you."

Clint nodded, "Let's get this done, then."

* * *

"Agent Barton," Sitwell nodded as Clint entered his office. "Doing okay?"

"Yeah." Clint glanced at the two men, before moving a chair so that he could see them both. "What's up?"

"Vacation." Doctor Beeks picked up an envelope from Sitwell's desk, handing it to Clint. "You get to go spend a month in Maine. You aren't allowed to contact anybody but me or Sitwell. Sitwell and I are the only ones allowed to contact you. Talking with locals is just fine and even encouraged from a rehabilitation standpoint for your implants, but you're on vacation, understand?"

Clint nodded. "Why just you two?" He opened the envelope, finding some keys and a map.

"So nobody can drag you back here, and because I'm going to be insisting on daily contact over video chat." Beeks stared at Clint. "You've been shoving everything down again this past week, and this way you won't be able to do that. If I feel like it, I might even make it twice a day."

"Again, why?"

"Look, Clint, if you snap, you will be very dangerous, and make what happened last year look like a walk in the park. I'm also _damned_ worried that you snap, Natasha will snap, and experiencing the two of you going on a rampage is not on my bucket list." Beeks shook his head. "Just work with me on this one, and trust that I know what I'm doing here, okay? And before you ask, I'm making Natasha do the same."

"Yes, doc. Because, as you have told me many, many times, you have the training to _cure_ mental traumas, and I've the training to _create_ mental traumas. Fine, I'll play your game, even though I think it's a _stupid_ game." Clint rolled his eyes.

"And _there's_ the Barton that we all know and love." Beeks glanced over at Sitwell. "Agent Sitwell, any other instructions to pass along?"

"Yes. Feel free to head out tonight or tomorrow morning. Don't tell anybody where you're going. Don't ask where Romanoff's going. Don't destroy the house. Feel free to take your bow, and whatever other weapons are considered legal for civilian use up there. There's a car waiting for you at the Tower that you can take. Don't starve yourself. If you get bored, let me know and Fury has some stuff that you can do." Sitwell thought for a moment. "And have fun."

* * *

The safe house was in a small town, which Clint found odd, since he'd expected something larger or completely isolated. He'd left Manhattan early that day, deciding to take his time driving north; the map said it'd take about eight hours. He'd put on familiar music while driving, hoping that it would all make some sense. It hadn't, and so Clint was feeling slightly frustrated when he finally pulled into the driveway. Entering the house, he looked around, finding that the kitchen was empty, and that everything needed more than a bit of cleaning. "Sure, they can send us off to wherever, but can't be bothered to actually give us someplace clean," he muttered, going back out to the car for his stuff, before driving back into town to find the grocery store. At least this place had furniture, though, and a television; most places that Clint had ended up had a mattress on the floor and not much else.

It didn't take long for the locals to discover that a polite (and bald!) man who had some difficulties with his hearing had taken up residence in the empty house on the edge of town, and that he'd come into town, bought cleaning supplies, eggs, milk, bread, and almost all of the canned and pre-packaged foods that the store had to offer before vanishing back up the road, and an impromptu welcome party formed up to go investigate.

Clint was taking out some garbage when he saw the trio of women walking up the road, and decided to head everything off at the pass by meeting them at the end of the driveway. "Hi." he said, leaning against the back bumper of his car, hands shoved in pockets. That was it. Sitwell, Beeks, and probably even Fury were all going to die painful deaths. Small-town, random group of women showing up, probably pastor's wife, mayor's wife, and the wife of somebody else important in town.

"Hello!" Clint predicted she'd be the pastor's wife. "I'm June, these are Mary and Sophie. We just wanted to stop by and say welcome, and to invite you to visit church this Sunday; Mary's husband is the pastor and loves to meet new people. What brings you here?"

"Clint," Clint nodded. He was still close on the pastor's wife showing up. "Here on vacation and to heal up from recent surgery. Nice to meet you ladies."

"Vacation? How nice! So how long will you be staying? And what do you do for work? Is there any way that we can help you?"

Clint thought for a moment. "I'm probably going to be here for about a month or so, unless something comes up at work. I work for a private security firm based in New York, and since I had a bit of vacation time saved up, decided to use it all up at once." He glanced at his watch. "If you ladies will excuse me, I'm actually expecting a call. I'll most certainly ask if I need any help." Smiling, he stood up straight and nodded again at the three. "Have a nice day."

* * *

"So, Clint, good drive?" Beeks looked straight at the camera with a small smile. "Find the place okay?"

"Doc, the place was a mess, and I thought that safe houses _weren't_ supposed to be someplace where when you go to the grocery store, the welcome wagon shows up fifteen minutes later. I've already been invited to church, and probably would've been told to come to more things, if I hadn't escaped."

"And what's wrong with that?"

Clint just stared at the computer. "You have to ask?" He let out a small huff. "Fine, then let me spell it out for you. I. Don't. Know. What. To. Do. Sure, I was looking forward to getting away, but now that I'm away? And I don't really want to have to answer a whole lot of questions from these folks." He sat back in the chair, spreading his hands in helplessness.

"You never did take a real vacation, did you." the psychiatrist shook his head. "And I can't tell you to have fun, because I don't know what you like to do for fun."

"Piss people off these days, mostly." Clint broke in. "Read. Movies. Music. Shoot my bow."

"Well then. Your job for the rest of the day is to finish getting the house to a state that you feel that you can live in. That doesn't mean getting down and scrubbing the floors, just get rid of the visible dirt, dust, and trash. Unpack. Is there a porch?" At Clint's nod, Beeks continued, "and go sit on the porch with a book. What did you tell the welcome wagon?"

"Private security firm, here on vacation and post-surgery." Clint shrugged. "Two truths and one semi-lie. Using my real first name, haven't thought about last names just yet. Have a lot of cash, so probably won't have to worry about last names for a while, if at all."

Beeks shrugged back at Clint. "Okay, whatever. I'm just psych, I don't really care about preparing for missions or cover stories. You signed off on using your bow again?"

Clint nodded. "Pretty much. Brought an older one, as well, with a lighter draw." The bow was one that Coulson had given him for some stupid reason a while ago. At least, it was a stupid reason for Clint _now_; back then it had meant everything to him.

"Remember, no hiding it, Clint." came the command. "Talk to me. Can't help you if you don't talk, and won't let you come back until you're fully centered again. Just think of spending a year in that little town, with the welcome wagon wearing you down until you go to church, go to their homes for dinner, hell, maybe even take their daughters out for dates..."

"_Fuck you_." Clint snapped. "Don't pull that shit with me. Ever read the Little Prince, doc? Read the damned chapter with that fucking fox and _then_ get back to me. I _know_ that Agent Phil Coulson, the first man I trusted in _years_, the man that pulled me out of the fucking _gutter _of my old life, is dead because he did something that was completely him and still completely _stupid_, if that's what you're getting at. So I didn't get to say goodbye, too bad, so sad for me, _nobody_ in my damned life has ever actually said goodbye, so you'd think I'd be used to it by now, right? I have _zero_ guilt anymore about my actions under Loki, because hello, magic and all that crazy shit that we've never had to deal with before. I _know_ that Stark didn't realize what could happen with those arrows. But you're pushing my buttons, doc, in a way that _only_ Coulson was allowed to." He reached down, picking up a bow, holding it up to the camera. "This thing? 'Congrats on getting your GED, Barton, please don't go any more nuts and kill us all in our sleep.' or something like that. Right now you're acting way too much like him for my comfort level."

Doctor Beeks just watched his computer screen as Clint went off. When he thought that Clint was done, he just asked "Finished?" At the glare, he continued, "I'm sorry for acting the way that I do, but Clint, this _is_ how I work. Want a different shrink? Sure, I can do that, Vantle has space, but he's the type that'll lay you out on the couch and ask about your mother, he's a fan of Freud. Me, I do a bit more of the style that makes you think and work things out for yourself. Will it seem like I'm channeling Coulson at times? There is no doubt of that. Will I ask you the uncomfortable questions? Of course. Will I make suggestions that seem stupid as hell? Naturally. Will I expect you to at least try them and let me know the results? Yes." He tapped his pen against his lips in thought. "So, now that I've gotten you rather nicely worked up, we're done for the day. Go do whatever, and I expect a call from you at 8 AM local time. Good? Good." He closed down the chat, not giving Clint a chance to respond, then allowed himself the laugh that he'd been fighting off. Beeks suspected that there was a part of Clint that was just playing them all, Clint included, and that he'd be back to normal a lot sooner than originally expected. Next up, Romanoff.

Clint just gaped at the computer screen, anger partially derailed. Setting his jaw, he took a look outside; there was still enough light to spend some time with his bow, so he went to grab the quiver of arrows he'd brought and search out a good target in the backyard. Taping paper up to a few trees, he fell into an easy rhythm of shooting. The actions also helped calm him down some, and by the time that the quiver was empty he was over most of his frustration with how the psychologist had _sounded_. Going from tree to tree, he gathered up his arrows, and thought about shooting some more, but a twinge from his arm reminded Clint that even though he'd been signed off to use a light bow, he was still healing. Instead, he just grabbed the papers that he'd been shooting at and moved into the kitchen, putting a can of Spaghetti-O's on the stove to heat up.

Clint spread the papers out on the table and took a good look at them while he ate dinner directly from the pot. No surprise, he'd shot the one that he'd written Loki's name on the most, but what was surprising to him was that _his_ name had the second most arrow holes in it. Everybody else's – Coulson, Stark, Rogers, Banner, Thor, Natasha, Fury, Beeks, Sitwell – only had one or two. "Well then." Tapping his fork against the side of the pot and happy that he was able to recognize it as the sound of metal hitting metal, he cleaned up, allowing himself a bottle of the beer that he'd stolen from Tony's stash that morning. He heard a noise, and, pulling out his handgun, went to look around. The noise repeated, along with some new ones, and Clint headed for the front door, opening it slightly. "Hi," he said, opening it fully, holstering his gun. "Mary, right? How can I help you?"

"Well, we saw that you were getting a lot of canned food, and that's really not something that a person should eat, so I brought you a casserole." She held out a dish, waiting until Clint took it. "And I also wanted to invite you over for Sunday dinner tomorrow. It's actually pretty casual; after Pete's in church for most of the day he just wants to relax, so don't feel like you need to do anything special. We eat at 6." She started to turn to leave.

"Hey," Clint said, putting the dish down on a table next to the door. "Where do you live?"

"Oh! Yes, that would probably help, wouldn't it? Did you see the church? We're right next door. It says Green on the mailbox."

"Thanks. You probably won't see me in church, but I'll be there for dinner." Clint gave her a small smile. "And thank you for the food, it smells delicious." He watched Mary turn to leave, then shut the door and returned to the kitchen. Putting the casserole in the fridge, he went back to staring at the paper spread out over the table. Being mad at Loki was completely understandable, as well as feeling mildly upset with everybody else, but he just couldn't figure out why he was so angry with _himself_.

"So, Barton." Clint started talking out loud, just to get some noise in the room. "Shit happened. Shit always happens, and you deal. So why can't you deal with this particular pile of shit that happened?" He shook his head. "Because you weren't fast enough to kill a demi-god, and the fucker played with your brain." Pulling a notepad out of his pocket, he scribbled a note to ask Thor – was it even possible for purely human technology to kill somebody from Asgard? A second thought hit him, and Clint was surprised that he hadn't really thought of it earlier. He'd been blaming _himself_ this entire time, because he'd broken programming, again. It wasn't a feeling of guilt, exactly, just a deep self-loathing that he'd been so _weak_. He moved into the other room, and fell asleep in front of the television.

* * *

"So, Clint," Doctor Beeks was yawning. "Good book?"

"Did one better." Clint was eating his breakfast; he'd allowed himself to be lazy and sleep in a bit. It was Sunday, after all. "Used my damn brain. And agreed to go to dinner at the pastor's house tonight, his wife was part of the welcome wagon and brought me food last night."

"Yeah? That was nice of her. And what'd you figure out?"

"Wasn't my fault."

"Huh." Those were words that Beeks wasn't expecting to hear. "What wasn't your fault?"

"Wasn't my fault that I couldn't take down Loki. Wasn't my fault that for the second time in my life I broke programming because _this_ time, I was under the control of a nutjob. Not guilt, but I just really, _really_ hate myself right now and probably have for a while. I seriously think that I'm pretty much cool with everything else, unless something happens that makes me think of specific things, and even then I just need a couple minutes to work through it. Can I come home now?"

"Nope, because I pulled your field clearance for a month, and you come back, Fury'll have you doing desk duty, and I'm not quite sure if you're blowing smoke or not. So, how did you come to that realization?"

"Did some shooting last night." Clint reached over and held up some papers to the camera. "Put names on paper, just shot at 'em based on how I was feeling. You. Natasha. Fury. Few other folks. Coulson. Me. Loki."

Beeks watched the screen as Clint held up the papers one at a time. Most of them had only one or two holes, but Clint's was looking like swiss cheese and Loki's was nearly shredded. "Damn. That was actually something that nobody thought about. Hold on one second, I need to grab something." He moved over to a filing cabinet and pulled out Clint's original file. Flipping through it, he sat back down. "Clint, if you've any other epiphanies, please tell me? I think that since you've been here so long, and what happened with Natasha was a while ago, we all forgot your initial training and the sheer amount of loyalty that we managed to train into you. Nobody's had as much loyalty to SHIELD as you do in a while, the notes are telling me. Director Fury, yeah, but he was a founding member. Not even Agent Coulson had as much loyalty, based on a few tests, believe it or not, although he came pretty close. General consensus at the beginning was that you'd only leave when you were dead."

"Yeah, Coulson talked about cutting back every once in a while, was seeing some lady that he met at the opera one night. Think she played for a symphony in Portland or something. Me, can only think of leaving in a body bag, true." Clint had gone back to eating.

"So, what were your plans for today?"

"Hiking, then the welcome wagon dinner." Clint shrugged. "Any last instructions? And hey, can we actually do this at night? I'd like to be able to get out of the house early."

"Yeah. Have fun. Talk to you tomorrow...8 PM local time?" Beeks reached out to close down the chat, watching Clint nod. _Good, not great_, he wrote down on his notes. _Directing convo, change tomorrow._

* * *

It took Clint a week to break and ask for some work to do, and another day for it to be sent to him, with a note that some physical files were being sent. What he got was more interesting than he'd originally anticipated; and Clint found himself splitting his day between it and shooting his bow or going for a hike. He did make sure to spend time in town, trying to rewire his brain. It was also another form of relaxation, one that he'd forgotten about, to just sit on a bench with a book and listen to conversations or watch kids playing while talking with their parents. It took the kids a couple days to realize that the new man was classified as "safe" by their parents, and another three for them to get him to at least join them on the monkey bars. Clint found playing with the kids fun, which surprised him. Almost like dealing with Tony, but any arguments that kicked up were easily resolved, actually used words that he understood, and there were fewer of them overall. The kids thought that Clint was pretty cool, especially after he taught them a couple tricks.

The physical files arrived in several different batches. As Clint flipped through the latest delivery about three weeks into his stay, checking to see that they matched up with what he'd been told that he was getting, one caught his eye.

"Hey. So, have a file here in the lot that just arrived."

"Yep. Fury slipped it in." Sitwell didn't sound surprised at the call. "He said to take a look. Few other things, too, but you can probably guess what all that was. Does he _normally_ call you a half-crazed idiot archer?"

"Yeah, that's actually a complement, coming from the old one-eyed bastard." Clint responded absentmindedly, flipping through the file. "Coulson...did a lot. Lot more than I thought, actually."

"Yeah. _Still_ trying to figure out just how he did everything, to be honest, and hoping that you'll have better luck and I can get back to the stuff that I know I can do while foisting most of this off on you. And on that note, when are you getting back?"

"Week, probably. This is a good time for me to just get a handle on the paperwork side of everything, without having to deal with any sort of crisis. It's really not that bad, but you probably don't want to leave the science side of everything. If you want, Nat and I can figure out something else for the whole field handler situation, especially since I think that technically I rank you now, or will whenever I get back. I do know that you're not read into some stuff that I've been sent, which just suggests that this is going to be, or already is, a total clusterfuck at some level that'll probably need to be cleared up by Fury. Hell, probably a good quarter of the files that I've gotten should never have been sent to me in physical form."

"I won't argue with any of that. Implants, because the doctors have been asking?"

"I'm talking to you on the phone, aren't I? Obviously I'm understanding what you're saying. But, gotta go." Clint hung up, taking the box of files into the kitchen. Sitting down, he stared at the file that had precipitated the phone call. Turning to the first page, he relaxed; somebody had gone through it and cleaned it all up a bit. He didn't really want to know all of Coulson's secrets; the fact that Coulson hadn't shared everything about his life allowed the man that air of invincibility that Clint had admired. But it was interesting reading, and Clint found it fascinating to trace how Coulson had started at SHIELD and ended up in the position that he had. Shaking his head, he put it aside to look at later; he had real work to do now. Glancing at the clock, he amended that "now" to "later" since he was expected for dinner. It was funny, the way that the women of the town had decided that he needed to be taken care of; he had only had to open a can twice since arriving.


	18. Chapter 18

It's all revealed. Clint shares some stuff, Coulson ends up being posthumously sappy. One more chapter after this.

* * *

Clint strode into the main room at the Tower, glancing around. "Hey, Steve." He tossed his duffel at a couch. "Where's everybody?"

"Welcome back." Steve said with a nod. "Bruce and Tony are in their labs. We were sent word that Natasha should be getting back sometime soon. Didn't know you were due back yet."

"Wasn't. Cut it early by a couple days. Hey, you can help me haul some stuff." Clint didn't give Steve a chance to object, just turned to walk back into the elevator. "JARVIS."

"Welcome back, Agent Barton. Did you have an enjoyable vacation?"

"Yeah. Thanks for asking. But I need your help. Is there any sort of an office that I can use? With a lock, and a desk?" Clint pulled out a notepad and was flipping through it.

"Not at this time, but Ms. Potts would be able to assist you. Would you like me to send her a message?"

"Nah." Clint pushed off from the elevator wall where he'd been leaning as the doors opened into the garage. "I'll probably use the one I've got at SHIELD. Steve, over here." He led the way over to a car, opening the trunk and pulling out a box. "Just want to get these upstairs."

Steve looked inside, seeing more boxes. He opened one, seeing a bunch of papers with holes. "What is this?"

"Work for SHIELD, you're cleared for some of it, but not all." Clint glanced over. "Oh, that. It's nothing." He reached over, taking the lid from Steve and closing the box, picking it up and stacking it on top of the one he already had. He waiting until Steve had picked up the other two boxes and shut the trunk, leading the way back to the elevator.

Natasha was waiting as the doors opened, hands shoved in her pockets. "So, fun time-out?" She glanced at the boxes in question, before grabbing Clint's duffel and following him and Steve down the hall to his rooms.

Clint nodded. "Yeah. Pretty much adapted to the implants, got some work done, went to the daily welcome wagon dinner, went hiking. Did some shooting with the welcome wagon husbands. You?"

"They made me fly coach. Non-stop to California." Clint could imagine the look on her face. "Middle seat, very back of the plane, screaming children, the works. There wasn't even a movie, or in flight music, and I had to pay for food. I don't know if it was because it was last minute, or because somebody was mad."

"Ouch. Where in California? They sent me to a little town in Maine."

"Southern. I spent most of my time on the beach, admiring the scenery and being admired in return." Natasha opened Clint's door. "So you went hiking? Nothing at the ocean?"

"Didn't want to take the time to drive there and back. Steve, you can just put those against the wall, thanks, and if you can wait a minute, I've some things for you. And if Fury offers to send you to Maine, _ask_ where the safe house is first. I get there, go grocery shopping, and about fifteen minutes later I get these three women walking up to invite me to church. Two hours later the pastor's wife comes back with a homemade casserole, and invites me to dinner the next day. She even sent me home with the leftovers. Ended up rotating between dinners at the locals, since the welcome wagon made it known that I was apparently a confirmed bachelor who survived on canned food and instant mashed potatoes."

"You _are_ a confirmed bachelor who would survive on canned food and instant mashed potatoes." Natasha pointed out, making Clint laugh.

"What's wrong with that?" Clint was digging in a box, pulling out some files, placing them in a pile. "Steve, couple of these are for you, some information that you'll want to take a look at, please don't ask just where it all came from because it's classified. Nat, have some bedtime reading." He held out one to Natasha, who glanced down at it.

"Clint?" She sounded unsure.

"Yeah, I had the same reaction. But it's all good, and Fury wouldn't've sent it to me if he didn't want you to see it, as well. And if he didn't want you to see it, then tough shit. I want you to see it."

"What are you talking about?" Steve had picked up the pile that Clint had made, taking a quick glance through.

"Personal." Was Clint's brusque reply. "Just like _that_ box isn't getting opened until I'm back at SHIELD because the amount of clearance required to see that stuff really means that it shouldn't have even been sent in the first place."

Steve had stopped at one file. "Winter Soldier? What's that?"

Clint glanced over at Natasha, who shrugged. "Have a seat." He waited until Steve and Natasha had sat down, before pulling drinks from his minifridge and passing them out. "The Winter Soldier was, and now apparently is once again, part of the Red Room, according to intelligence. I could've sworn I had killed him oh, thirteen, fourteen years ago now, but it's now appearing that I didn't, because he's been spotted in central Russia. He actually helped to train Natasha way back when."

"I've always thought that Clint had killed him, so I'm a little distressed to know that maybe that didn't happen."

"But, Nat, remember, Red Room was doing their own version of the serum that Steve got, just not quite as complete. Hell, you got some of it that one time...couple times, if the records are correct."

Natasha glared at Clint. "Don't remind me. Even though the healing part is nice, you think I _like_ looking like a perennial twenty-something? But, Winter Soldier. I'll tell the story, you'll just go off on tangents. Steve, the Winter Soldier was found by the Red Room's immediate precursor during World War Two, not far from a HYDRA base that had been destroyed by Allied forces – you, I believe. I'd always been under the impression that he was an American soldier based on what I'd heard around Red Room and what I heard him say sometimes. Unfortunately for him and the Red Room, their usual methods of control didn't work very well, so he was in and out of the field constantly. They didn't want to just kill him, because it's like that nursery rhyme. When he was good, he was very, very good, but when he was bad, he was horrid. I talked with Coulson a bit about him, and it was decided that he was an American service member that was named Bucky Barnes."

Steve swayed slightly in his seat. "Bucky?" He shook his head. "Couldn't be. I saw him fall off a moving train that was on a cliff a couple hundred feet in the air."

"But did you see his body?" Clint leaned forward, looking at Steve intently. "Read that file, Steve, then we'll talk. I shot him in the chest, saw not one, but two of my arrows go straight through, and now I'm finding that maybe, just maybe, I should've gone for a head shot, but it was cold, dark, and center mass was easier to hit in the conditions that I was in. That's the problem in our line of work, if you don't see a body, there are times that you can't be one hundred percent sure that they're dead. Nat, remember Alexei?"

"Him." Natasha shook her head. "He was dead. He wasn't dead. He was dead again. Alive again, then dead again. At least the second time we sat around long enough to confirm that yes, I truly was a widow, _finally_. The Red Room seems to have problems with allowing people to _stay_ dead, which just makes our lives that much harder. And Red Room's orders, when I defected, was that to make sure that _he_," she pointed at Clint, "was dead was dismemberment, followed by cremation. If they are so good at not letting death stop a person, they probably thought that SHIELD was the same."

"Don't forget the lye and salt." Clint grinned. "_Love_ that bit."

"Widow?" Steve sounded curious. "You were married?"

"Another life." Natasha shrugged. "Wasn't by choice."

"Well, as much as I'm enjoying this little chat," Clint stood up, "need to go ruin the lives of a couple scientists. Out."

* * *

"Tony, you've got some 'splaining to do!" Clint sang out as he entered Tony's lab, tossing a couple folders on the table where the other man was working. "And don't worry, Uncle Clint brought back presents for everybody." He paused. "Almost everybody. Sorry, JARVIS."

"Knowing that you have returned and we can continue previous conversations is gift enough, Agent Barton." The cool tones of the AI made Clint laugh.

"I know that I didn't do it, whatever it is." Tony had picked up the top file and was flipping through it. "Did I? And who taught JARVIS to joke?"

"Think that was more sarcasm. But. Official request for you, from several annoyed IT guys. If you're going to make any changes to computer systems, let people know first." Clint leaned against the table, staring at Tony. "If you'll just tell me in the future, I'll make sure the right people know, so there aren't any freak outs."

"That I can admit I didn't do. If you do want to know who did, I can take a look." Tony was frowning. "Where did you get all this? And how?"

"When I say you don't want to know, it means you don't _get_ to know." Clint shook his head. "But let me know what you think when you get a chance. Don't go diving into SHIELD computers until I get a chance to talk to some people first. It's possible that they're just trying to shift some blame; I think this is about when a batch of new recruits was supposed to be released into the big scary world. And, hey, Tony. Thanks. It's nice being able to hear on a consistent basis again, especially at night."

"Yeah, whatever, we'll test that out later." Tony absentmindedly waved at Clint, deep in thought as he read the files. "Go away."

Sighing, Clint headed for the door. "C'mon Steve. _Somebody_ needs to geek out some more. JARVIS, is Bruce still in his lab?"

"I believe that he went upstairs, to the kitchen. Would you like me to ask him to stay there?"

"That'd be perfect, thanks." Clint headed for the stairs. As Clint entered the kitchen, he saw Bruce sitting at the table, reading the paper. "Bruce! This stuff might be interesting for you to look at." He held out a file. "Have fun," he started to say, when Tony burst through the door.

"SHIELD has had this information for years and hasn't done anything with it?" He ignored the way that Clint tensed slightly. "That's practically, practically _criminal_."

"Tony," Clint started, not turning around, "frankly, SHIELD has had other things to do than think about pandering to egos. So, going to lay down the law here. _Either_ of you use this information in a manner that allows the general public to learn about the existence of SHIELD, _neither_ of your labs will be safe, nor will you get out of humiliation the likes of which you've never experienced before. Similar goes for you, Steve. Understand?"

As Bruce nodded, Tony moved to stand in front of Clint. "So, question. What happens if Bruce Hulks out on you after discovering that you screwed with his stuff? And how will you even get into my lab, considering that I'm going to lock out your access code?"

Clint shrugged. "I'm just that good. And as for the Hulk," here Clint pulled out a gun, "have this."

"You know, guns just make the Other Guy angry, and bullets tend to bounce." Bruce pointed out. "And where do you keep that thing?"

Clint just glanced around, and walked to the counter. Turning to face the room, he ejected the clip and removed a bullet, carefully tossing it to Bruce. "Same metal, same drug as my arrows, just takes a few more to get the same volume in him. All I have to do is hope to shoot faster than he can move, and the ideal would be to hit him someplace soft like his eye. Simple." Clint ignored Bruce's wince and Tony's laugh. "And you know how much _space_ I have in these pants?" He started to go through his pockets, putting things onto the counter as he talked. "Let's see...painkillers; notepad; pens; second gun; knife; phone; knife; wallet; here are your keys, Tony; _my_ keys; wallet with a fake ID, no wait, that's my real one so _that's_ the throwaway one; no clue what that is, just that it's important and to never lose it; some first aid stuff; duct tape. Oh, SHIELD badge and keys. Few spots that you all aren't cleared for that still have physical locks. And a pair of clean socks. Always have clean socks with you. Tend to have more on me during missions, but I've more pockets then, too." He glanced around, grinning and shaking his head at the looks the scientists were giving him. "There are reasons why I don't wear a suit."

Steve wandered over, picking up a knife. "This is a nice knife."

"Yeah, it's a beaut. It was a present." Clint started putting everything away.

"How do you even move with all that?" Bruce had moved to stand next to Clint, holding out the bullet that he'd been looking at. "And why here?"

"Look at all these windows. The roof. Underground. Professional paranoia, Bruce. SHIELD has a lot of enemies, and I helped to create a few of them. Should ask Natasha what the Red Room was saying about me when she defected, it's a riot. Right, Steve?" Clint took the bullet, glanced at it, then put it back in the clip and reloaded the gun. Making sure the safety was on, he put it back in its spot. "And before you ask, it's all pretty light, and it doesn't bounce around a lot. Guns have holsters, knives have sheaths. Only problem is the bottle of pills, but," he vigorously shook it, "keep enough cotton in there, and they can't move around nearly as much."

"It's not because of any of you." Natasha said from the door. "We trust you to watch our backs, but we're fans of staying alive – not having the Hulk, Bruce, or the advancements that you got, Steve, or a gigantic metal suit of armor, Tony, means that we need to be a bit more careful when we're out." She watched as Clint finished making sure that things were put back properly. "Although I don't carry nearly as much as he does; he's a bit of a worrier about people getting hurt."

"Yeah, well," Clint was leaving the room. "Hate having to break in new partners. Still haven't figured out the whole field handler situation yet; it'll probably take a couple weeks. Only stuff that's on the board right now though is some deep undercover work that you can do in your sleep, Nat. Southeast Asia, I'll bring you the stuff on Monday; need to talk to the boss first."

* * *

"Sir, need to talk to whoever sent me those files." Clint leaned against the doorjamb in Fury's office. "Good chunk of them shouldn't've left here."

"Agent Barton, didn't Coulson ever teach you to knock?"

"He tried. He failed, and if you actually want people to knock, leave your damned door shut. And this situation is turning into a gigantic clusterfuck. It's been a year and Sitwell's still feeling a bit overwhelmed, and I _know_ he didn't get handed everything that Coulson left unfinished." Clint moved further into the room, crossing his arms and staring at Fury. "I've also got an idea as to what you actually want me to do, but some confirmation or denial would be nice, because it could quite nicely fuck up a few different things if I'm wrong."

Fury looked at Clint and nodded, a short, sharp jerk of his head. "I had those files sent. Place you went, knew that people wouldn't snoop. And I'll be nice and spell it out for you, Barton. Need you to start filling the hole that Coulson left. Problem?"

Clint looked around for a chair, then sat on the edge of Fury's desk. "Only when I have to go into the field. But I'll work something out with Natasha and Sitwell; he's not _bad_ at being a field handler, but he needs some more confidence, or else he'll get eaten alive when Nat's in a mood. I took a look at his file, and letting him fly solo isn't a problem because for what he's done, he's damn good, but he's just not got the same level of experience in managing the field operatives. He doesn't quite realize that they're not the same style of crazy as what he's used to. I'll talk with him, he's got some good ideas down, but he just needs to develop his own style, and not try to ape Coulson, because it won't work. That okay?"

"Yeah. And you'll need to head out to deal with the latest bunch of recruits; they're bitching about something. I told them to go crying to you. And get off of my desk; I run a respectable organization."

"Where're they at now?" Clint responded to Fury's command by standing up, then leaning against the side of the desk, smirking as Fury leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. "Respectable. Riiiight."

"Florida. And while you're down there, have a few other things that need fixing in that part of the world." Fury hit a few keys on his keyboard. "And congratulations, _Clint_, you've now gotten all the headaches that have been building up for the past year."

Taking the hint, Clint stood up straight and, with a nod, left to continue knocking things off his to-do list.

* * *

Clint had an office on the Helicarrier, something that was little more than a closet, but he'd never actually _used_ it for anything more than extra storage. So when he entered, he stopped in surprise. Somebody had obviously been in here, cleaned the place up, and brought in a bookcase and a couple filing cabinets. Moving to his desk, he noticed an envelope lying on the keyboard. Sitting down, he picked it up, and felt a sudden flashback to when he'd first met Fury, on Coney Island. He'd been sitting in a chair all by himself, staring at an envelope then, too, although they'd used his full name, and it wasn't in Coulson's handwriting. Opening it with a small frown, he started reading.

"Clint." Yeah, that was Coulson. "You're a damn fool," definitely Coulson, "and I hope that you get this quickly, although knowing Fury, he'll probably hold onto it until he feels it's really needed, and maybe not even then. You've my permission to do whatever the hell you want if that's the case, after all, I'm not around to have to pick up the pieces, thank God for that. Just remember, you're going to have to keep on working with him, so don't screw it up.

"I know that you're mad and upset, and blaming yourself. Don't. I saw those tapes from PEGASUS, and realized that there was a very good chance that one or more of us wouldn't make it; I just hope that I made the decision about my own death, like I've always wanted. I also hope that it wasn't at the end of an arrow, and that I went down fighting." Clint shook his head, and kept on reading. Coulson had written a lot, mostly remembering things that had happened in the past. Missions, pranks, even when he'd been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the world of SHIELD. It was written on different types of paper, in different inks, which suggested to Clint that Coulson had been working on this for a very long time. He wondered how many different versions of the opening there had been.

The last couple paragraphs gave him pause. "Clint, you are, without a doubt, the best thing to walk through the doors of SHIELD, and don't you ever forget that. Don't let it go to your head, either. From that punk-ass kid who only knew the circus life and who was looking, desperately, for security and a place to actually belong, to the honorable young man who used his brain to make connections that nobody else saw and refused to kill a scared young woman but instead made her into his partner, a partnership that seems like you are two halves of a whole, to the responsible man who willingly gave up the only vacation he'd ever had a chance to take to help fight a threat that the world has never seen before, I am honored to have been there to watch it all. I'm also glad that you've been tagged to move up into my position, I know you'll do even better than I did.

"Son, I'm glad to have had you as family, and I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye the way that both of us would have wanted. A letter is a damn poor substitute, that's for sure. But it's as good as we're going to get, and I needed to make sure that you had at least one person in your life actually tell you goodbye, and that they were proud of you. So, here it is. Goodbye, Clint, and I'm damn proud of you.

"Don't fuck this up. Phil."

Clint folded the letter up, tucking it back into the envelope. Placing it on the edge of his desk, he shook his head as he booted up the computer. "Bastards, both of them." He'd reread the letter later, and find someplace safe to put it, and think about how _sappy_ Coulson was. He did know that Fury wasn't above screwing with people, but he'd seen Coulson's handwriting enough to know that it really had been Coulson who wrote it. Sharing it with anybody else was definitely out. Leaning forward, he started reading through the mess that was Florida, before reaching out for his phone. "Barton. Need a flight to Florida in an hour." He'd fly himself, but it looked like he'd be bringing some people back with him, and the back of a Quinjet was possibly one of the best places to ask questions, since it was about as neutral territory as one could get in SHIELD. He dialed a second number. "Tasha, it's Clint. Heading to Florida for a few days; I'm e-mailing you that mission info. Yeah," he leaned back in his chair, smiling. "The old one-eyed bastard actually admitted it. Tell the others for me that I'll be back later, okay? Thanks. Bye."

Fury smirked as he read the single word that Barton had e-mailed him; obviously he'd finally gotten his ass into his office. "At least I'm a _benevolent _bastard, you damned insufferable archer."


End file.
